Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION AND SCIENCE

Adult Education (Russell Report)

Mr. Hamling: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether she will make a statement on her intentions with regard to the implementation of the Russell Report.

Sir Gilbert Longden: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what proposals she has for implementing the Russell Report; and if she will make a statement.

The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): My Department's preparatory work is nearing completion and I hope to arrange discussions with the major adult education interests in the next few weeks.

Mr. Hamling: Is the right hon. Lady aware that the House has been waiting a very long time for the Government to make up their mind on this important report? Is she aware that we believe the real reason for the delay in publishing the Government's policy on this report is the meanness of the Treasury?

Mrs. Thatcher: I am happy that the hon. Gentleman has a reply which indicates that a document will be out in a few weeks' time as a basis for discussion.

Mr. Moyle: Does the Secretary of State agree that the adult education world has been waiting for four years for the report to appear and has been waiting six months for her to decide to do something about it, while in the meantime

everybody has been subject to inflationary pressures? Will she, therefore, in addition to any grant she may be considering, also give an interim amount to the Workers' Educational Association to enable it to carry on its work, especially its experimental work, in addition to any grant for industrial relations work?

Mrs. Thatcher: No, Sir. Over the period to which the hon. Gentleman refers the number of people in adult education has already grown by 750,000, so that expenditure on this aspect of education has not been at a standstill.

Mr. Wilkinson: Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the best forms of adult education is through the Open University and that she would be wise to give that progressive institution her full support?

Mrs. Thatcher: The Open University is given comparatively generous support by the Treasury direct from my Department. It is a specialised form of adult education and one which not everybody would wish to follow. I am more concerned at the moment with the other matters to which the Question refers.

Ministerial Responsibilities

Mr. Molloy: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if she will list the range of responsibilities of her Department's Parliamentary Secretaries.

Mrs. Thatcher: Subject to my own responsibility, matters relating to higher and further education go to my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas) and those concerning schools and the youth service to my noble Friend Lord Sandford. This demarcation is not rigid: from time to time each of us deals with any matter which affects my Department.

Mr. Molloy: Is the Secretary of State aware that her hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas) is reported as having said last Saturday that, if most ordinary people made certain sacrifices, they could all have their children privately educated? Does she agree with that statement? If so, will she tell my constituents what sort of sacrifices they should make to have their children privately educated?

Mrs. Thatcher: I cannot confirm the hon. Gentleman's report of my hon. Friend's most excellent speeches which always make a considerable impact and which succeed in totally defeating all Opposition Members, as happened recently on television—defeating them as decisively as they were defeated at the polls on Thursday. It would help if more local authorities were prepared to give grants to independent schools for some parents who particularly wished to take advantage of them. My hon. Friend referred to that aspect.

Mr. Kinsey: Can my right hon. Friend say whether the attention of her noble Friend has been drawn to the statement of the Birmingham education committee chairman who has told children that if they fail the selection examination they will have to take any school that is available? Is not this blackmail? Will the right hon. Lady take steps to overcome it?

Mrs. Thatcher: I have heard suggestions about allegations. If my hon. Friend will let me have the details, we will look into the matter. On the whole, however, admissions policy is left to local education authorities. If they act unreasonably one can issue a direction under Section 68 of the Education Act.

Mr. Molloy: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to inform the House that I shall seek to raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible opportunity.

Chilean Refugees

Mr. Clinton Davis: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether she will enter into discussions with universities and other institutes of higher education with a view to making free places available for Chilean refugees.

The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Norman St. John-Stevas): My right hon. Friend sees no need to do so.

Mr. Davis: If young people or academics seeking refuge from the tyranny in Chile seek to obtain admission to universities and other places of higher education in this country, does not the hon. Gentleman consider it important to show a measure of flexibility and ensure that

they can come here with some hope of resuming their academic careers?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I understand that there are about 50 Chilean students, almost entirely postgraduate, at institutions of higher education in Britain. But if the hon. Gentleman has any particular cases in mind in which he thinks that either my right hon. Friend or I may be able to help, we shall be glad to hear from him.

Mr. Marten: Can my hon. Friend say who is paying for those 50 students?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: The payment for those students is a matter for them; it is not a matter for my Department. I do not know what private arrangements they have made but, so far as I know, the Department is not paying for them.

Mr. Kinnock: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that progressive opinion throughout the world, including some Governments, is most critical of the action taken by Her Majesty's Government in many spheres regarding their policy towards the Fascist junta in Chile? As an educationist of some repute, does he think that it would be worth while extending the opportunities of our free education system to those victims of Fascist repression who have done nothing that could conceivably be called wrong in a democratic State in their own country?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: Without going into the foreign political implications of what the hon. Gentleman has said, as I pointed out in reply to an earlier question my right hon. Friend and I will do what we can to help rather on grounds of individuals suffering hardship than on political grounds.

Books and Equipment

Mr. Marks: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is her estimate of the increase in educational spending on books and equipment in 1974–75.

Mrs. Thatcher: I have no means of making such an estimate.

Mr. Marks: Is the right hon. Lady aware that when local authorities are asked to restrict expenditure, as they will be next year, the sphere in which they can do so is extremely narrow and that educational spending, particularly current


spending on books, equipment and repairs to buildings, invariably suffers? In her White Paper she said that we needed a 3 per cent. increase in real terms every year in this area. Is it the Government's intention that we shall get it?

Mrs. Thatcher: I cannot reveal details of the rate support grant negotiations, which are always confidential, but, as the hon. Gentleman knows, those negotiations usually include an improvement factor for non-teaching costs, of which books and equipment form part.

Mr. Goodhart: In view of the enormous discrepancy between local education authorities' expenditure on school books and the probability that textbook prices will increase by 15 per cent. in the coming year, may I ask my right hon. Friend to consider the possibility of minimum standards for book expenditure by local education authorities?

Mrs. Thatcher: I have not so far considered that possibility. It comes under this large block of expenditure on non-teaching costs. In fact, it is one of the fastest rising blocks of expenditure in education, indicating that authorities are giving a good deal more attention to it. There is a later Question on the Order Paper from the reply to which my hon. Friend will see that the amount spent on books in the past has been rising quite rapidly.

Mr. Carter-Jones: Will the right hon. Lady consider the situation of severely handicapped children who require quite expensive advanced technology equipment to enable them to communicate and to learn? Such costs can eat severely into the resources of a school and local authorities. Will the Secretary of State consider making this equipment available directly either through her Department or by persuading the Department of Health and Social Security to provide it to these children for assisting their learning process?

Mrs. Thatcher: We could not make it available directly through the Department unless it were part of a research project. However, as the hon. Gentleman knows, expenditure on equipment in special schools is very generous. Indeed, I think it is the most generous part of school expenditure today.

Mr. Dalyell: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is the proposed expenditure on school textbooks for the next academic year; and if she will give any easily available figures for such expenditure over the past five years.

Mrs. Thatcher: I have no information with which to answer the first part of the Question. For the financial years 1969–70 to 1972–73 expenditure by local education authorities in England and Wales on text and library books at out-turn prices was about £13½ million, £16 million, £19½ million and £23 million.

Mr. Dalyell: Are those figures in real terms? In answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Marks), the Secretary of State seemed to imply that, because expenditure has been rising, perhaps next year it will level off. Is it an injustice to the Government to say that that is their position?

Mrs. Thatcher: Yes, indeed, I believe that it is. I made no such implication. Expenditure on books and equipment has been rising, and the hon. Gentleman will remember I replied that it is customary in a rate support grant negotiation to have an improvement factor for this kind of expenditure.

Mr. Freeson: To what extent has that expenditure been rising in real terms?

Mrs. Thatcher: These figures were at out-turn prices.

Private Education

Mr. Norman Lamont: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what discussions she has had with interested bodies about the future of private education in England and Wales.

Mrs. Thatcher: None, Sir. The bodies concerned are well aware of my belief that there should be a healthy independent sector in education. From time to time I meet their representatives to discuss general educational matters.

Mr. Lamont: Notwithstanding the timing of the Shadow Cabinet elections, is it not remarkable that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) should still put forward educational policies which are contrary to the


United Nations Declaration of Human Rights? If he thinks that charging for private education should be made a criminal offence, should he not tell us what sentence would be appropriate?

Mrs. Thatcher: I am not aware of what dispositions will be made in the Shadow Cabinet. I hope that the hon. Gentleman stays where he is, because he is a great asset to this side of the House.

Mr. Molloy: In noting the intense interest that all Ministers of Education in the present administration seem to have in the private sector, may I ask the right hon. Lady to provide ordinary folk with a sacrificial list of what they ought to go without in order to send their children to private schools?

Mrs. Thatcher: If any sacrificial list is required, I think it more likely that the Labour Party will have to make one.

Southampton (School Building)

Mr. R. C. Mitchell: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what discussions she has had with the Southampton Education Authority concerning the operation of Circular 12/73.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: Officials of the Department visited Southampton on 29th October to discuss future building programmes with the education authority.

Mr. Mitchell: Will the Minister allow the Southampton education authority to proceed immediately with the rebuilding of the Bitterne Church of England Middle and First School and with the urgently needed improvements to the Deanery Secondary School, for both of which projects tenders have already been received and approved locally within the cost limits?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I am aware that the Southampton local education authority sought final approval for these projects on the day before the circular was issued and that the tenders were within the cost limits. I regret the need to delay starts in these circumstances, but we are bound by the circular. We cannot make exceptions. However, when the period covered by the moratorium comes to be considered we shall certainly have regard to Southampton's case.

Mr. Hattersley: Does the moratorium on new contracts end on 1st January?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: A circular will be issued as soon as possible setting out the basis for the resumption of building.

Inner London Education Authority

Mr. O'Halloran: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what further plans she has for a meeting with the leader of the Inner London Education Authority.

Mrs. Thatcher: I have no immediate plans for such a meeting.

Mr. O'Halloran: That is a very disappointing reply. Is the right hon. Lady aware that hundreds of children in London are receiving part-time education because of a shortage of teachers? When will she do something about the London allowance, salaries and housing for teachers, because, instead of part-time education, some children will shortly have no education at all?

Mrs. Thatcher: Many other education authorities have far less generous staffing than ILEA compared with the number of children receiving full-time education. It is somewhat ironic that the authority with the most generous staffing should have the largest number of schools on part time. Increases in the London allowance, based on the Labour Government's formula in 1967, are payable outside the pay limit and there is a general reference to the Pay Board about the future of the London allowance and its geographical basis.

Captain W. Elliot: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the trouble in London is not the overall shortage of teachers but the shortage in various specialised subjects?

Mrs. Thatcher: That is correct, particularly in mathematics, science subjects and handicrafts.

Mr. Hattersley: The right hon. Lady has said four times in this House that the Inner London Education Authority has what she described as a generous teacher/pupil ratio. Is she saying that ILEA has all the teachers it needs? If not, what is she saying when she makes that comparison with other authorities?

Mrs. Thatcher: That is exactly what it means. ILEA has a more generous proportion of teachers to pupils than other authorities. Perhaps it would be as well if in future the quota was set to bring other authorities up to ILEA.

Public Education (Cost)

Mr. Jessel: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is the cost per 100,000 children of public education.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: In 1972–73, about £21½ million at out-turn prices, including capital expenditure from revenue and loan charges.

Mr. Jessel: Does my hon. Friend agree not only that would the Labour Party's policy to abolish all private education impose heavy additional expenses on both ratepayers and taxpayers but that, in constituencies such as mine with an above-average proportion of children attending private schools, it would lead to acute overcrowding of local authority schools?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: The Opposition's proposals for the closing down of the private education sector would certainly be very expensive. About 500,000 children are involved and by 1981 the cumulative cost of transferring them to the publicly maintained sector could be of the magnitude of close on £1,000 million, including capital and recurrent costs, which is a sum roughly equivalent to our annual bill for teachers.

Mr. Deakins: Will the hon. Gentleman give the breakdown of the level of expenditure on a five-year-old school pupil and on a PhD student at university?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: My right hon. Friend does not think it necessary to go into detailed breakdowns of policies that she has no intention of putting into operation.

Building Cost Limits

Mr. Barnes: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if she will now increase the cost limits for educational buildings.

Mrs. Thatcher: Price movements since the last increase in cost limits are being taken into account in drawing up the

arrangements for the resumption of approvals for educational building. An announcement will be made as soon as possible.

Mr. Barnes: Is not the right hon. Lady aware that the situation is extremely serious, especially in London, because the average level of tenders has increased by about 60 per cent. in the last year whereas costs limits have increased by only 22 per cent., with the result that schools being built in London are not up to standard, especially in such things as cloakrooms, showers and changing rooms? As that is not, as far as I know, happening in other parts of the country such as the North and the Midlands, does not the right hon. Lady think that there is an overwhelming case for a regional differentiation in the cost limits?

Mrs. Thatcher: It would be difficult to get precise regional variations. Tenders do not vary on the basis of regions, nor indeed on the basis of the standards of schools. One of the most important factors in the standards which architects can get out of the cost limits is their own ability to design. I have seen a number of schools in what one might call high-cost areas which have much better facilities than schools in low-cost areas, the differences being brought about by the architects.

Mrs. Renée Short: Would the right hon. Lady care to forecast what the Bank Rate will be at the end of the moratorium and what she thinks will be the additional cost to local education authorities when they have to go out to tender again to get new prices to build schools which she is not allowing them to build now?

Mrs. Thatcher: Even if I could, I should not make such a forecast.

Mr. Astor: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that it is not only in the London area that authorities are having great difficulty in keeping within the present cost limits? In Berkshire the difficulties are particularly acute. Will my right hon. Friend consider that area, which is short of school places?

Mrs. Thatcher: I recently went to a school not far from my hon. Friend's constituency and found that it had excellent standards, even though it was not complete. When we consider the new cost


limits we shall look at the tenders coming in to see what new limits need to be adjusted.

Teachers' Superannuation

Mr. Harold Walker: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if she will issue a circular to local authorities recommending them to bring the teachers' superannuation scheme into line with that of the National Health Service in respect of employees' contributions.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: No, Sir.

Mr. Walker: How can the hon. Gentleman remain so insensitive to the bitterness of the teachers, which has arisen from the mathematics of their pension scheme and has resulted in the disruption of education services in some areas? There is great sympathy for the teachers, who, it is felt, have been cheated by the mathematics of the scheme and been treated particularly inequitably compared with what we believe to be an analogous situation in the National Health Service. Surely it is wrong that the benefits of the reassessment of the contributions to the scheme should accrue to one side only, namely the employers. In the light of this, will the hon. Gentleman consider the matter more urgently, sympathetically and understandingly than hitherto?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: It is true that the teachers feel bitter about this, but their feeling is not justified by the facts. The employee's contribution is a proportion of the new entrant contribution which is higher for the teachers' scheme than for the National Health Service scheme because different factors are involved. Although the levels of benefit are much the same in both schemes, different occupational factors produce different costs. These include the average age of retirement, the rate at which salaries progress, and the number of scheme members who withdraw contributions.

Sir D. Renton: Can my hon. Friend say why teachers pay a higher contribution than civil servants who, as I understand it, make a 6 per cent. contribution compared with a 6¾ per cent. contribution by teachers?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: It is precisely because of the variable factors which I

have just mentioned. It is fair to point out that at an earlier period teachers paid less. In the National Health Service scheme from 1948 to 1972 the employee's contribution was 6 per cent. and the employer's 8 per cent. Under the teachers' scheme the contributions were 5 per cent. and 5 per cent. until 1956, 6 per cent. and 6 per cent. from then until 1966, and 6 per cent. and 8½ per cent. following that until 1972. There was no request for equivalence in the last period.

Mr. Barry Jones: Is it not possible that the teachers may be driven to take some form of industrial action because they feel that in this matter they have been gazumped? What urgent measures does the hon. Gentleman propose to take, bearing in mind the anger and bitterness of all the teachers in England and Wales?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I hope that they will not resort to those extreme measures. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would be the last to encourage teachers to take such action. What is important is that it should be explained to teachers as well as to their representatives exactly what are the facts involved in this situation.

Mr. Freud: Will the hon. Gentleman explain why our pension contribution as Members of the House is 5 per cent., and will he tell us the difference between our occupation and that of teachers who are paying 6¾ per cent.?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: Our probation is liable suddenly to be interrupted.

Student Grants

Mr. Thomas Cox: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science when she expects to announce her future policy regarding students' grants.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: My right hon. Friend hopes to announce in the spring the revised rates of grant to take effect from the academic year 1974–75.

Mr. Cox: I note that reply, but is the hon. Gentleman aware of the urgency of the matter bearing in mind that the present-day value of student grants has been seriously eroded by inflation and that many students now have to rely upon the generosity of their parents? Is he further aware of the real urgency of the need to remove the discrimination which


now exists against married women students and the way in which their grant is assessed? Can he assure us that all those matters will receive close attention?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I was aware of the urgency of the matter months ago. That was why my right hon. Friend appointed a working party to go into a number of matters, including the rise in the cost of living and various points which the NUS wished to raise. I have said that I shall consider sympathetically the question of the married woman's grant. My right hon. Friend has increased the grant by £20. That was the first increase since the Labour Party froze the grant in 1968 at the 1965 level.

Mr. Winterton: In the review which the Department is carrying out into student grants, what consideration has been given to the parental contribution and to the matter of discretionary grants?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: Both those matters are being carefully considered and I hope that the report on them will shortly be ready. My right hon. Friend has raised the level of disposable income for starting parental contributions, and that has helped many students. We should like to do something more about it, but it is extremely expensive. To abolish the parental contribution altogether would cost £60 million.

Mr. Ewing: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that at every Scottish university, with one exception, the intake of students this year is much lower than last year and in previous years, and that this situation is likely to continue for many years? Will he accept that the inadequacy of the grants is an important factor in the number of students at any university?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I am concerned that students, who make a valuable contribution to our society, should get a fair deal, and within the budgetary limits with which we are faced we shall do our best for them.

Russian Language

Mr. Moyle: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether, through her inspectorate, she will arrange for a study of intensive instruction methods for the promotion of Russian.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: Her Majesty's inspectors are already acquainted with the methods of intensive instruction in Russian, and I do not think that a special study is justified.

Mr. Moyle: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that Russia is likely to remain a powerful and influential country for as far ahead as we can see? That will result in a long-term demand for people in this country who can speak Russian, and it is that, and not the short-term demand, which should be the criterion. Will the hon. Gentleman therefore do his utmost to reinstitute the intensive short course in Russian at Liverpool Polytechnic which has had such a high reputation and which his inspectors have recommended should be closed?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I think that without running any risks I can accept the hon. Gentleman's forecast of the permanent existence of Russia. With regard to intensive short courses, from time to time my Department gives approval to a series of one-year intensive short courses in Russian. These are run in further education establishments in order to give teachers of other foreign languages a qualification in Russian. In view of what the hon. Gentleman said, I shall consider the Liverpool case.

Mr. Redmond: In view of the appalling level of syntax, grammar and spelling that we see in some of our letters from graduates and students, would it not be better for the Department to concentrate on the teaching of English?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: We have no responsibility for curricula in the schools or for the literacy or illiteracy of our correspondents.

Independent School Places

Mr. Grylls: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many places are being taken at independent schools by local authorities in 1973.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: In January 1973 there were 96,126 pupils at non-maintained schools for which local education authorities were paying the full tuition fees. These include 60,983 at direct grant schools, 20,431 at ordinary independent schools, 8,788 at non-maintained special schools and hospital schools and 5,892


received special educational treatment at independent schools.

Mr. Grylls: Does my hon. Friend agree that the broadening of the social base of the pupils in the independent and the direct grant schools is a more useful approach than the Opposition's rather destructive and doctrinaire attitude of abolishing them altogether?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: Local education authorities have a very valuable power to provide free accommodation, of a boarding nature, for example, if suitable education cannot otherwise be provided. It is a good thing, too, in other cases that fees may be remitted on grounds of hardship. To have places available in the independent sector is a valuable adjunct to the maintained sector.

Mr. R. C. Mitchell: The Minister should be very careful about this matter. Is he aware that in a Written Answer to a Question of mine on Monday it was revealed that of the 11 independent schools in Southampton only four were recognised as being efficient by his Department? May I ask him to do nothing whatever to encourage local authorities to send children to those schools which are not recognised as being efficient?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I am always careful when being questioned by the hon. Gentleman. But recognition as efficient is conferred as a special mark of distinction by the Secretary of State—[Laughter.]—yes; I am glad that the Opposition Front Bench has learned something—whereas registration guarantees a certain minimum standard.

Secondary School Building (South Derbyshire)

Mr. Rost: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science when she expects the projected secondary school building programme for children in Melbourne and the surrounding areas of South Derbyshire will be completed.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: Two phases in the construction of the proposed Chellaston Secondary School in Derby, which will provide selective places for children from the Melbourne area, are programmed to start during 1975–76 and

1976–77 respectively. These projects are expected to be completed during 1977 and 1978. No new provision for non-selective pupils from that area is at present included in the building programme.

Mr. Rost: Is my hon. Friend aware that 1977 will not be soon enough because, as a result of the reorganisation of Derby borough education, children in Melbourne and the surrounding areas of South Derbyshire will now have to continue to take a selective examination in order to compete for places in a non-selective system? Does my hon. Friend really think that this represents equality of educational opportunity?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I appreciate my hon. Friend's concern for the children of his constituents, but in allocating resources for the replacement of old and sub-standard secondary schools priority naturally has to be given to the most pressing bids made by the authorities. Unfortunately, the replacement of the Melbourne Secondary School has not been given high priority by the Derbyshire authority.

Education Service Priorities

Mr. Hatton: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether she expects the level of Government spending on education during the financial year 1974–75, already announced, to be sufficient to meet the proposals as set out in the recent White Paper on future priorities in the education service.

Mrs. Thatcher: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Hatton: Is the right hon. Lady aware that her optimism contrasts sharply with the views of chief education officers who are now wrestling with their financial estimates for the next financial year? Indeed, if the Department is prepared to advise local authorities on the continued expansion of the education service, is it not incumbent upon the Government to see that sufficient funds are available?

Mrs. Thatcher: The hon. Gentleman will have his full answer when the public expenditure White Paper comes out at the turn of the year. He will be very well aware that expenditure on education in local authorities has been rising extremely fast and looks like continuing to rise.

Teachers (London)

Mr. John Fraser: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what steps she is taking to arrest the shortage of teachers in London.

Mrs. Thatcher: Staffing standards in inner London schools have been consistently among the very best in the country. Last January, for example, the pupil/teacher ratio in secondary schools was 15·4:1 compared with a national average of 17·2:1. In September inner London was just over 1 per cent. below quota. This is common enough over the country as a whole, and I think we shall find that even this year London's schools are probably better staffed overall than most.

Mr. Fraser: That was a ridiculously complacent reply to a parent whose children are coming back from a State school after part-time schooling. May we have an immediate increase in the London allowance? If the Pay Board takes until June next year, this will not only kill the recruitment of teachers in the present academic year but will sabotage recruitment in the next academic year. This is a much more serious problem that the right hon. Lady seems to understand.

Mrs. Thatcher: I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman was present when I answered a similar Question earlier. The fact is that London has a higher proportion of teachers to pupils than almost any other authority. It is one of the biggest authorities and, therefore, should be one of the most efficient. But it is a fact that the authority which has the worst performance on part-time education has a better staff/pupil ratio than any other authority.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: The Minister may have been speaking only about inner London, but she is probably aware that I have written to her about the problems of Newham, which have been aggravated by her Government and her Department. The right hon. Lady knows that children there have been waiting for months for places in schools. She knows that there is a grave shortage of teachers. Will she give some assurance that she will do something to help Newham?

Mrs. Thatcher: Officials from Newham were in the Department the day after the reports appeared in the Press. They agreed with the Department that there was no shortage of accommodation in the schools for the pupils. My information is that almost all the pupils have been allocated to schools. I am not quite sure of Newham's teacher/pupil ratio. If the hon. Gentleman tables a Question about that I shall do my best to answer it.

Mr. Armstrong: Is the right hon. Lady aware that all the statistics in the world about pupil/teacher ratios are no comfort to parents whose children are having part-time education? Does she not feel any responsibility for children who, in the main, are in the greatest need and are being denied full-time education in 1973?

Mrs. Thatcher: I find it very remarkable that a local education authority, the duties of which are to see that children have schooling and which has the largest proportion of teachers in the country, is unable to provide all of them with full-time education.

Captain W. Elliot: Is my right hon. Friend aware that part of the trouble is the gross misrepresentation of this business by the ILEA? In all the circumstances, is it not time to look at this authority as a whole to see whether it is efficiently carrying out its job and, if possible, to get rid of it?

Mrs. Thatcher: I am aware that a number of my hon. Friends hold that view, but I cannot hold out any hope of looking at the question immediately.

Mr. Hattersley: I think that three of the right hon. Lady's answers have contained innuendoes about the Inner London Education Authority. I wonder whether she should steel herself to give the answer which I suppose she was implying. If there are enough teachers in London, why are there 12,000 pupils at present on part-time education?

Mrs. Thatcher: That is the very question which the Inner London Education Authority, with the teachers in its employ, should ask itself. The hon. Gentleman appears to be asking me to take power to direct it. What the hon. Gentleman does not like and cannot stand is the facts.

Expenditure

Miss Lestor: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is the estimated increase in educational expenditure for 1974–75 in real terms compared with the current year.

Mrs. Thatcher: I must ask the hon. Lady to await the publication next month of the Government's annual public expenditure White Paper.

Miss Lestor: Will the right hon. Lady tell the House now—because she must know the answer—whether the estimated increase in real terms represents the forecast percentage increase in the White Paper? Will she also give an assurance to the House that, despite the chaotic financial and economic situation of the country, there will be no cut-back on education expenditure in real terms in the current year?

Mrs. Thatcher: I think that the hon. Lady must wait for the publication of the White Paper. She knows that these forecasts are not made absolute before that occurs.

Burnham Committee

Mr. Haselhurst: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what discussions she has had with leaders of the teachers' unions about the composition of the Burnham Committee; and if she will make a statement.

Mrs. Thatcher: I have discussed this question in recent months with representatives of several teacher associations. I have no statement to make at present.

Mr. Haselhurst: From such figures as are available, can it be inferred that the present representation does not accurately reflect the present size and variety of teachers' unions? May I ask my right hon. Friend whether she will take the initiative in negotiations for changes?

Mrs. Thatcher: It is not easy to get the precise proportions in which the unions represent the teachers, because I have no power to demand specific figures of numbers in the several unions, although the National Association of Schoolmasters voluntarily supplies them. I would agree with my hon. Friend that women are certainly very under-represented by

women on the teachers' panel, but I hope to have a statement to make within the next few weeks or months.

Staff Rooms and First-Aid Rooms

Mr. Sydney Chapman: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if she will introduce minimum standards of work space per teacher in staff rooms in schools and first-aid rooms for students.

Mrs. Thatcher: The Standards for School Premises Regulations 1972 already require all maintained primary and secondary schools to have staff common rooms and suitable accommodation for medical inspection and treatment. I am reluctant to go into greater detail.

Mr. Chapman: As the staff facilities at some of the older schools in particular are completely inadequate for members of the staff who have to undertake administrative work on the premises, and as the first-aid facilities are inadequate or even non-existent, will my right hon. Friend at least consider bringing schools within the provisions of the Offices, Shops and Railways Premises Act, so that members of staff are at least considered equal to, for example, typists in offices?

Mrs. Thatcher: I would agree with my hon. Friend in his general aim. I think that the question really turns upon the amount of resources available for improvement, and, as he knows, the present Government have given more for improvements than any other Government have done.

School Building

Mr. Marten: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if she will make a statement on the effect of phase 3 on school building.

Mrs. Thatcher: School building is included in the arrangements for phasing forward public building works announced by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on 8th October. The general effect of the statement is that new starts which would otherwise have started will be delayed by about three months. The basis on which approvals are to be resumed from 1st January will be announced as soon as possible.

Mr. Marten: Is my right hon. Friend aware how very frustrating the delay has been to the ordinary process of building our schools, particularly in the country areas? May we have an assurance that we shall have the details as soon as possible and certainly before Christmas?

Mrs. Thatcher: Yes. It must be before Christmas, because approvals are due to start again on 1st January.

Mr. Marks: The right hon. Lady has said that there will be an increase in unit costs for school building when building is resumed. Will she ensure that those authorities which have been unable to get tenders but already have approval will be able to get an increase in the new pricing?

Mrs. Thatcher: We will take into account some of the tender prices when we look at unit costs.

Mr. Hattersley: I am not entirely clear about what was said earlier. Is the right hon. Lady saying that the moratorium definitely ends on 1st January?

Mrs. Thatcher: If the hon. Gentleman had been listening, he would have heard me tell my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Marten) that approvals restart on 1st January.

East Suffolk (Expenditure)

The following Question stood upon the Order Paper:

Sir H. HARRISON: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what has been the total capital expenditure on schools in East Suffolk since 1st July 1967.

Mr. Speaker: Sir Harwood Harrison.

Sir H. Harrison: Question No. 25—but may I point out, Mr. Speaker, that the year 1970 should be substituted for 1967?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I am sorry, but clairvoyance is not among the attributes of the Department—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]—but only powers of prophecy, such as that the Opposition will long remain on the Opposition benches.
The total for the period 1st July 1967 to 30th June 1973, in terms of projects started, is £4,960,000.

Sir H. Harrison: I should like to tell my hon. Friend that I informed his office of the change in the year. I should also like to say to him how very grateful we in East Suffolk are for the great interest which the Government are taking in education there.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I am grateful to my hon. and gallant Friend for his unfailing courtesy. The starts programme in East Suffolk has new major projects worth £1,125,000, and that is the largest major programme the authority has ever had.

Oral Answers to Questions — FOREIGN AND DEFENCE POLICY (SPEECH)

Mr. Norman Lamont: asked the Prime Minister whether he will place in the Library a copy of his public speech on foreign and defence policy at the Royal Festival Hall, London, on 26th October.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Edward Heath): I did so on 29th October, Sir.

Mr. Lamont: Is not one of the lessons of the last few weeks that, even if Europe decides that its interests diverge from those of the United States, it is difficult to have an independent European foreign policy without some risk to Europe? Is it not more than ever clear that we need to have within NATO specific European defence co-operation?

The Prime Minister: There is a considerable degree of European defence co-operation within NATO through the Europgroup. Of course, this includes very close co-operation on supplies and development of weapons, as well as discussions about policy.

Mr. Thorpe: Does the Prime Minister remember that when he made that speech at the E1 Alamein reunion he said that peace would lead to greater prosperity in this country and other countries than had ever before been known? Did he know that in 18 days' time he would have an all-time record Bank Rate, imports up, exports down and a visible deficit of £298 million?

The Prime Minister: I was making that statement about the Middle Eastern war, and I believe it to be absolutely true that,


if Europe can secure détente with the Soviets and the Eastern European countries, and if we can get a permanent settlement in the Middle East, this will help Europe and the rest of the world to have the greatest prosperity it has known.

Mr. Haselhurst: Is it not true that the continuing scale of the Warsaw Pact forces, and the apparent readiness of the United States of America to reduce her forces in Europe, undermine the position of strength from which my right hon. Friend said we should be trying to negotiate? Will he try to place this matter high on the agenda for discussion between the Community Heads of Government?

The Prime Minister: There is at the moment no agenda for the meetings of the Heads of Government in the Community, though this will be discussed by the Foreign Ministers at their next meeting. As regards the question, of course there is an opportunity for dealing with this matter in the European Security Conference, where we have constantly emphasised that we want to bring about better relations. There is an opportunity for European Powers to bring about détente with greater security in the European Security Conference. As regards forces, a mutual and balanced force reduction can be agreed upon in the conference which is at present being held.

Mr. James Lamond: Does the Prime Minister recall that at the end of his speech he made a stirring call to the people of Britain to show comradeship towards each other? Does he think that he contributes anything at all towards that comradely feeling by refusing to withdraw legislation such as the Industrial Relations Act and the Housing Finance Act, which are very divisive and have clearly shown that his concept of one nation can never be achieved so long as we have a Tory Government?

The Prime Minister: I do not accept any of the hon. Gentleman's allegations. I have constantly told the House that, if amendments to the Industrial Relations Act are put to us by employers, trade unions or any other bodies, they will receive full consideration, because we are prepared to amend the Act on the basis of a reasonable working of the Act. That is our position and we stand by it.
To take up the particular point mentioned by the hon. Gentleman, it requires responsibility from all sections of the community. That was the point I was emphasising.

Mr. Harold Wilson: Was it in this speech or in his speech to the Institute of Directors that the Prime Minister said that the problems we were facing were those of success?

The Prime Minister: This is absolutely right. I am glad the right hon. Gentleman has asked that question, because it enables me to point out the dilemma, which he will never acknowledge, that expansion is required in Britain by the trade unions just as much as by the employers and that we require additional fuel and raw materials via our imports for expansion. The right hon. Gentleman will never get expansion without it. This is something he has never faced up to. Nor is he prepared to face the fact that, if inflation is to be dealt with, there must be a framework such as the House has approved for dealing with it. Let him say whether he believes that the miners should carry on with their present overtime ban or whether they should work on the perfectly generous basis approved by the House and the National Coal Board's offer.

Mr. Wilson: I am willing to make a statement on that. However, the right hon. Gentleman must get away from trying to justify his own failures by always asking me how to do it. If that is the position, the sooner we change places the better.

The Prime Minister: Last Thursday showed very effectively that that will not happen.

Oral Answers to Questions — PRESIDENT POMPIDOU

Mr. Dalyell: asked the Prime Minister when he next expects to meet President Pompidou.

Mr. Strang: asked the Prime Minister if he plans to meet the President of France in the near future.

The Prime Minister: As I told the House on 8th November, I will be meeting President Pompidou at Chequers next Friday and Saturday.—[Vol. 863, c. 1169.]

Mr. Dalyell: Does the Prime Minister himself acquiesce in the French view that we, the nations of the Community, should go our own way while one of our number, namely, Holland, is discriminated against by the Arab oil exporters?

The Prime Minister: That is not the French view, nor that of the Community. All the Foreign Ministers of the Community countries signed an agreed statement that was put out by the Community of Nine.

Mr. Tebbit: Will my right hon. Friend remind President Pompidou that, at a time when the Western alliance has been under considerable stress, we in this country would regard it as a most suitable act by France if she were to rejoin NATO and make available her forces fully to the NATO alliance?

The Prime Minister: France is a member of the alliance and her forces will be available to and co-operate with the alliance. President Pompidou and the whole French Government are fully aware of our view that we would very much wish them to become a full member of the organisation as well. It is a matter for the French to decide.

Mr. Strang: Does the Prime Minister agree that the proposals for the reform of the common agricultural policy announced by the Commission last week are a profound disappointment to those of us who had hoped for significant changes in a policy which is utterly inimical to the interests of the British people?
When the Prime Minister sees President Pompidou, will he make it clear to him that the incredible proposition that British milk producers will pay a special tax to solve the continental butter surplus, bearing in mind that the British milk producers supply only a fraction of the British butter market, is unacceptable?

The Prime Minister: I would not deal with the Commission's proposals in such a way. They must be dealt with by the Ministers of Agriculture and the Council of Ministers. This is the proper procedure. The price of butter in Britain is lower as a result of our being in the Community than it would otherwise be.

Mr. Marten: When my right hon. Friend sees Mr. Pompidou, will he try to get his support for a joint approach to the Common Market to suspend the 8 per cent. tax on imported lamb on 1st January which is being imposed because we have joined the Common Market and which seems so unnecessary in the present climate of rising food prices?

The Prime Minister: I know the point my hon. Friend is making and I have dealt with it before. I have already assured my hon. Friend that this is a matter to which we are giving consideration.

Mr. Shore: With a £2,000 million a year minimum current account deficit, will not the Prime Minister be discussing matters such as the future of sterling and economic union with the President of France from a position of appalling weakness; and does not the right hon. Gentleman think that it would be better to postpone the visit?

The Prime Minister: Certainly not.

Oral Answers to Questions — EUROPEAN SUMMIT MEETING DECISIONS

Mr. Wyn Roberts: asked the Prime Minister if he is satisfied with the progress made in implementing the European summit decisions of October 1972.

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Roberts: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the need for a united European approach within a democratic framework to our problems, ranging from oil supplies to inflation, has grown more pressing since last year's summit? Although progress has been commendable to date, is not the need more urgent now than ever before?

The Prime Minister: I agree about the urgency of and need for the matters which we settled at the summit. Considerable progress has been made in the 10 months or so of this year since the Community has been enlarged. The Community has reached agreement on its approach to the GATT negotiations. It was the first to be ready to negotiate. We have successfully opened negotiations under Protocol 22 for the new association agreement involving so many of the countries of the Commonwealth. There


is a comprehensive Community environmental programme. There has been the institution of the European monetary co-operation fund. In addition, on the political side we have successfully achieved a common position on the European Security Conference, on the response to the United States for its Year of Europe and now also on the Middle East. This is a considerable degree of progress in these 10 months.

Mr. Joel Barnett: Given the current economic situation, does the Prime Minister agree that, whether one wanted to go into the Market or not, this is no time—indeed, it is absurd—to be considering negotiation of an economic and monetary union?

The Prime Minister: I do not accept that. I am perfectly prepared at any time to hear the arguments from the hon. Gentleman as to why this should be so. However, we stand to benefit from a greater degree of economic union in Europe. I believe that in the second stage we can agree on a considerable amount of progress.

Mr. Callaghan: Does not the increase today in the minimum lending rate to 13 per cent. show how hollow is the pretence that we are moving towards a monetary union?

The Prime Minister: I do not think it does, because at the moment there is no agreement in Europe. There has been no attempt to get agreement in Europe about the common handling of interest rates. This does not mean that there are not other spheres of economic union in which we can make progress.

Oral Answers to Questions — FUEL AND POWER

Mr. John Fraser: asked the Prime Minister if he will appoint a Minister with special responsibility for fuel supplies.

Mr. William Hamilton: asked the Prime Minister if he will now take steps to appoint a Minister with Cabinet status with sole responsibility for energy policy.

The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentlemen to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. William

Hamilton) on 6th November.—[Vol. 863, c. 119–20.]

Mr. Fraser: May I ask the Prime Minister—or should I say Mr. 13 per cent. plus?—whether, in the absence of such an appointment, he would care in the present state of affairs to consider not merely appointing a Minister responsible for fuel but allowing the country an entirely fresh administration that can rescue it from the disaster and deception into which it has been plunged by the present administration?

The Prime Minister: In the past the hon. Gentleman has taken an interest in energy and oil policy. Therefore, I will deal seriously with his question and answer it by saying that I think the present organisation in which the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and the Minister for Industry have responsibility for the whole of energy policy has great advantages and I do not propose to make changes at present.

Mr. Edward Taylor: Although the interruption of fuel and power supplies will cause inconvenience to everybody, may I ask my right hon. Friend or one of his colleagues to take a special interest in the problem of those living in multi-storey flats who suffer acute hardship if the lifts do not work during a power strike, as many of these people are elderly or disabled?

The Prime Minister: I will certainly ask my right hon. and hon. Friends in government to pay particular attention to that point

Mr. Orme: Having set up the Pay Board, and having now introduced their stage 3, why have the Government suddenly decided today to consult the electrical power workers but not the National Union of Mineworkers? Also, why did they consult the Glasgow firemen? Does not all this prove that the Prime Minister's policy is a sham and that he is trying to buy off one section so that he may attack another?

The Prime Minister: Nothing of the sort. I think that the hon. Gentleman must be on the wrong Question. What he says has nothing to do with responsibility for energy policy.

Mr. Orme: Of course, it has.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the nation's need is not for a fuel Minister but for sensible and constructive co-operation within the law by all those engaged in all the fuel industries?

The Prime Minister: That is absolutely right. I have already said that, in order to look after this country's interests, what is required is not only co-operation but responsibility from all groups.

Mr. Skinner: Will the Prime Minister take a fresh look at the question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme) and the connection it has with the original Question asking for the appointment of an industrial energy supremo, and will he do that with special reference to the view that some people, both inside and outside the House, hold of what the Government have done in finding a great deal of flexibility for the Glasgow firemen and by meeting the electrical power workers this afternoon? Will the right hon. Gentleman recognise that it can be argued that he is taking on the miners deliberately in order to blame them for a trade deficit of £300 million, a bank lending rate of 13 per cent. and all the other ills of the nation's economy?

The Prime Minister: The House knows very well, even if the hon. Gentleman does not, that there is absolutely no question of the Government wanting to take on the miners or to have a confrontation with any section of the community. I should have expected the hon. Gentleman to recall that I myself met the miners' negotiating body and I went over the whole of the stage 3 possibilities with them in the utmost detail. They have been fully informed by me personally about the whole situation.

ICELANDIC FISHERIES

The Prime Minister (Mr. Edward Heath): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I should like to make a statement on the Icelandic fisheries.
I apologise to the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition if there has been any delay in his receipt of the statement. I know that he did not have very much notice. He knows

the reason for the delay, which the note which I have just received confirms.
During my discussions with the Icelandic Prime Minister on 15th and 16th October, we worked out a basis for an interim settlement of the fisheries dispute. This has now been embodied in an exchange of notes, which I am glad to be able to tell the House was signed in Reykjavik at 2.45 p.m. today, of which I have just had confirmation.
The agreement will last for two years and will be without prejudice to the legal rights of either Government in relation to the substantive dispute. It is based on an estimated annual catch of about 130,000 tons by British vessels in the disputed area, but no actual catch limit is incorporated. The main provision are for reductions in the number of British trawlers fishing in the disputed area and restrictions on the areas in which they will operate. The fleet of fresher trawlers will be reduced, by comparison with the number notified as fishing in 1971, by 15 of the largest trawlers and 15 other trawlers, so that it will consist of not more than 68 trawlers of 180 feet or more in length and not more than 71 trawlers of less than that length. No British freezer or factory trawlers will fish in the area.
The area restrictions provide, broadly, that one-sixth of the disputed area will be closed to British trawlers at any one time. In addition there will be certain agreed conservation areas and areas reserved for Icelandic small boats.
An agreed list of vessels which may fish under the terms of the interim agreement has been drawn up. If any vessel is discovered fishing contrary to the terms of the agreement, the Icelandic coastguard will have the right to stop it, but will summon the nearest British support vessel in order to establish the facts. Any trawler found to have violated the terms of the agreement will be crossed off the list.
I am very glad that we have now reached a negotiated interim settlement. We are giving up areas which, though small, have traditionally provided significant catches, and are excluding some vessels which have hitherto fished off Iceland. A substantial British trawler fleet will, however, be able to operate freely, without fear of harassment, in the major


part of the disputed area. The agreement will put an end to an unhappy and dangerous situation which was damaging our relationship with a NATO ally. It will mean that the Royal Navy and the tugs will no longer be called upon to provide protection, an arduous task which has been performed with skill, determination and forbearance.
The fishing industry welcomes the agreement for the prospect which it gives of a return to more normal conditions, and I am grateful for the co-operation it has given us throughout the dispute. I recognise the hazards which the skippers and crews have had to face. They have demonstrated their ability to cope with difficult circumstances and will now, I am sure, show the same qualities in their efforts to keep up supplies to the consumer. In the longer term, new developments in fishing technology open up the prospect of fishing unexploited stocks on new grounds, and the Government are helping the industry with the exploration of these areas.
With this agreement, we have, I believe, laid a new basis for the friendly co-operation which should characterise our relationship with Iceland, and we have made good provision for the needs of the fishing industry during the period in which wider international arrangements are being worked out.

Mr. Harold Wilson: The right hon. Gentleman should have been making a statement today on his economic crash programme instead of making it outside the House and refusing to submit himself to questions.
We welcome the Prime Minister's announcement of an interim settlement of the dispute, although we shall, of course, wish to consider, especially in conjunction with those of my hon. Friends who represent fishing areas, the exact meaning of the detailed terms which have been negotiated, with great difficulty, as we all understand.
The Prime Minister referred to it as an interim agreement. Is it the Government's policy to try to reach something definitive in the Conference on the Law of the Sea governing these questions, and does our case still stand at the World Court?

The Prime Minister: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for the welcome

which he has given to the agreement. I must, however, correct him on one point. I have made no statement outside the House on other matters today.
Our position at the World Court remains exactly as it is, and the agreement is without prejudice to the case of either country in this matter. This is an interim agreement covering two years from the moment of signature this afternoon, in the expectation that the Conference on the Law of the Sea will be able to reach firm conclusions. We all know the difficulties facing a conference on the law of the sea, but both Governments hope that it will have been possible by the expiration of this agreement to reach agreement on the law of the sea and that that will then govern the situation.

Mr. Wall: I welcome the end of this dispute between friends, and I recognise that the agreement is a great tribute to the initiative of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and to the courage of the Icelandic Prime Minister. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the agreement maintains the freedom of the seas, and will he acknowledge also that it has been achieved with the agreement of and at considerable sacrifice by the British fishing industry?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir; I am glad to pay my tribute to the work of the Prime Minister of Iceland, both in the two-day conference which we had in London, and, since he returned to Iceland, in securing implementation of the agreement through his own Cabinet and through the Althing which then discussed it.
As regards the law on freedom of the sea, I do not think that anything is affected by the terms of the agreement which we have made. I have already referred to the arrangements which the British fishing industry has been prepared to accept in order to put an end to the dangerous situation which has existed. We fully recognise what has been done. The agreement has been accepted because it makes the industry's conditions for fishing far less hazardous than they have been in the past, and the industry recognises also that, as a result of further exploration by the Government, it will have opportunities in fresh areas which will be opened up. Looking forward to the time when


the law of the sea is settled at the conference, we shall by then, I think, need to have done considerable development in other fishing areas, for the advantage of our own fishing industry.

Mr. James Johnson: I welcome the statement, and I bear in mind that the Prime Minister has played a decisive part in the settlement. It would be churlish not to acknowledge that. Nevertheless, is he aware that the whole industry has made most unpalatable concessions so as to arrive at a settlement? However, the settlement is acceptable to us and the fishing ports.
In the light of that situation, will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance to the fishing industry that the Government of the day will do all that they possibly can to help the fleets in the next two years in their stocktaking? In looking ahead and planning the future of the industry, particularly in new grounds such as the South Atlantic, we shall need help with research and the financing of our ships to discover whether and when we can go there.

The Prime Minister: The Government will give all the help they can to the fishing industry in the development of new areas. I should not like to commit myself specifically to the South Atlantic at this moment. That is an area to which consideration has been given, but there may be other areas which are more favourable to us.
I have already expressed my gratitude to the fishing industry for the close co-operation which it has shown. As I think the hon. Gentleman knows, all through the two-day talks which I had with the Prime Minister of Iceland the fishing industry was in the closest contact with us and we were able to discuss each aspect of the package which was finally settled.

Mr. Wolrige-Gordon: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the settlement and the British trawling industry on its acceptance of it. Does my right hon. Friend note that the reaction of the Scottish Trawlers Federation on the Faroese settlement has been nothing like so favourable? Will he undertake, in view of the recent developments, a very careful review of what is now going on in our waters within 50 miles of the coast?

The Prime Minister: I am prepared to consider that matter. I think that we already have all the information, and we acknowledge only up to the 12 miles limit. At present the 50 miles off-shore in our own waters is covered by what we regard to be the law of the sea in the judgment given for us by the International Court, which bore out that position.

Mr. Pardoe: While I welcome the agreement, have the Government made an estimate of the actual value of the catch which we shall lose as a result of the agreement? What estimate have the Government made of the impact on our balance of payments?

The Prime Minister: It is difficult to estimate the catch which we shall lose. First, the analysis of what can be fished in the area open to us is covered by the new approach. We shall have a target of 130,000 tons but not a catch limit. If our fishermen find in the course of fishing these areas that they are above 130,000 tons, that would be all the better for us. The other factor which we must take into account is that what is open to us around the whole of Iceland for the coming year, 1974, will be substantially less than what we have had in the fishing year 1973. It is not possible to make the sort of calculations about which the hon. Gentleman has asked. Supplies of fish depend to a certain extent on how rapidly our fishermen are able to develop new areas which we hope to explore and on which we have information, and the other stocks which come in from other fishermen.

Mr. W. H. K. Baker: I sincerely congratulate my right hon. Friend on the agreement which he has been able to reach. Will he consider the draft agreement and the similar sort of terms which are in being for the settlement of the Faroe dispute? The Scottish Trawlers Federation is by no means satisfied with that. I hope that a better remedy can be found.

The Prime Minister: I have already given an assurance that I will personally consider the matter and communicate with my hon. Friends.

Mr. Heffer: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that most hon. Members will


be pleased with the agreement? However, many hon. Members will feel that the agreement should have been reached much earlier instead of there being a certain amount of gunboat diplomacy. Who precisely will police the agreement, and what will happen if there is a dispute arising out of the agreement?

The Prime Minister: I thank the hon. Gentleman for what he has said. It is true that we would have liked to reach an agreement long before now which would have avoided the Navy or the tugs having to play any part, but that did not prove possible. I am delighted that the Prime Minister of Iceland has found it possible to reach an agreement.
On policing, as I mentioned in my statement, if an Icelandic boat believes a British trawler is fishing in one of the areas in which fishing is excluded, either for conservation or for agreement reasons, it will summon the nearest British fisheries protection vessel. Together they will discuss whether our trawler was in breach of the agreement. If it is agreed that the trawler is in breach of the agreement there is no question of proceedings in an Icelandic court. The boat will no longer be on the list of boats which can fish in waters off Iceland. That was the basis of the approach for working out that sort of problem. We have confidence from the fact that during the previous agreement in the 1960s a similar process was used. That worked satisfactorily. There was no case of its being breached or a problem arising as to whether or not a boat was in the area.

Mr. Jeffrey Archer: My constituents will be thankful that this matter has now been settled. For them the most important factor is the 130,000 tons. We are conscious that there have been long and protracted negotiations. We realise that every effort has been made. We hope that both sides have now reached a settlement.

The Prime Minister: I thank my hon. Friend for what he has said. The industry feels that a catch of about 130,000 tons without a catch limit suits it best in the present circumstances and avoids all the hazards to which it has been subjected during the past 18 months.

Mr. McNamara: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the members of my union who supply the crews for these vessels will welcome the agreement? Further, is he aware that they will be looking as well at the longer term as well as the short term of two years? Whilst they will welcome the Prime Minister's statement about possible help to the fishing industry, they would feel that it would be of more positive help to have a clear indication of what Her Majesty's Government's policy will be and the proposals that they will be putting forward for fishing limits at the International Law of the Sea Conference? Will the right hon. Gentleman consider publishing a White Paper on the fishing aspects of the conference as soon as possible?

The Prime Minister: We are very conscious of the need to look at the longer-term position with the industry—namely, to the time when we can hope that the International Law of the Sea Conference will have concluded successfully and we then have to fish under the conditions agreed to at the conference. As far as the proposals and the conference are concerned, it is early yet to make any statement about them in debate or in the form of a White Paper. I shall bear in mind what the hon. Gentleman says.

MESSAGE FROM THE QUEEN

Proclamation of State of Emergency

Message from Her Majesty brought up, and read by Mr. SPEAKER, as follows:
The Emergency Powers Act 1920, as amended by the Emergency Powers Act 1964, having enacted that if it appears to Her Majesty that there have occurred or are about to occur events of such nature as to be calculated, by interfering with the supply and distribution of food, water, fuel or light, or with the means of locomotion, to deprive the community, or any substantial portion of the community, of the essentials of life, Her Majesty may, by Proclamation, declare that a state of emergency exists: and the present industrial dispute affecting persons employed in the coal mines and the electricity supply industry having, in Her Majesty's opinion, constituted a state of emergency within the meaning of the said Act of 1920 as so amended:
Her Majesty has deemed it proper, by Proclamation dated the 13th day of November 1973, and made in pursuance of the said Act of 1920, as so amended, to declare that a state of emergency exists.

PROCLAMATION OF STATE OF EMERGENCY

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Robert Carr): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a statement.
The Government consider that the present situations in the coal and electricity generating industries constitute a threat to the essentials of life of the community which is sufficiently serious to justify taking immediate emergency powers to maintain essential services. They have, therefore, thought it right to advise the proclamation of a state of emergency under Section 1 of the Emergency Powers Act 1920, as amended, followed by the making of emergency regulations under Section 2.
The regulations will be laid before Parliament and will come into force at midnight tonight. Published copies will be available tomorrow. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House will shortly announce the arrangements for debating the motions on the Address and on the regulations. The regulations are almost identical with those made in August 1972; the only significant additions are to Regulations 19, 20 and 21 extending the powers of the Secretary of State over water and sewerage.
The use of the powers will be limited, as always, to what the essential public interest requires.

Hon. Members: Resign.

Mrs. Shirley Williams: This is the fifth emergency to have been declared in just over three years under this Government compared with one state of emergency declared in the whole of the previous 15 years. [Laughter.] Hon. Members on the Government side may laugh but they should recognise that governing in a democracy by a state of emergency is a highly dangerous thing to do. The Home Secretary has declared that the essentials of life of the community are threatened by the overtime bans in the coal and electricity generating industries. May I ask whether the overtime ban in the mines, which has lasted for just one day, and which was described by The Times today as having had only a slight effect on supplies—

Mr. William Clark: What does The Times know about it?

Mrs. Williams: —and which was against the background of a statement by the Government that there are 12 weeks of coal supplies at the power stations, justifies a state of emergency? Will the Home Secretary say whether the reasons for this state of emergency do not have much more to do with the persistent optimism of the Government over Middle East oil supplies, with the timing of the recent by-elections and with the desire to place the blame for the economic state of the country on the trade unions than they have to do with the overtime bans in these two industries?
Will the right hon. Gentleman assure the House, as the state of emergency has been declared in terms of coal and electricity, that there will be no action whatsoever to ration or restrict oil supplies? Will he give that assurance since it does not occur in the announcement about the state of emergency? If he cannot give that assurance we shall reach very different conclusions about the reasons for the state of emergency. Will he say whether the powers which are contained in all emergency regulations to control the price of essential foodstuffs will be brought into operation immediately, because I am sure the Government appreciate that the only hope they have of


making phase 3 effective is to impose price controls on essential foodstuffs?
Why did the right hon. Gentleman choose last night to make a statement dealing with violence in industrial relations to a meeting at Leicester when no violence has been offered and when none has yet occurred and when it is not the Home Secretary's job to be provocative in this manner?

Mr. Carr: On the question of timing, there was only one factor which the Government took into account, and that was what is required to safeguard the public interest. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Hitchin (Mrs. Shirley Williams) referred to governing in a democracy by means of a state of emergency—

Mr. Freeson: And lies.

Mr. Carr: The hon. Lady might also have mentioned democracy requiring some respect for the law. [HON. MEMBERS: "Resign."]

Mr. Heffer: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I should like to know on what basis the Home Secretary can speak in terms of the miners—[Interruption.]—or any other class of workers breaking the law at this moment.

Mr. Speaker: That is not a point of order. The Minister is responsible for his statement. But I wish there was a little more general order in the House.

Mr. Carr: The miners' leaders—[HON. MEMBERS: "Withdraw."]—have made specifically clear that they realise that they are pressing a claim contrary to the Government's pay policy—[Interruption.]—which was approved by this House, and they have specifically stated that if this may break the Government so be it.

Mr. Atkinson: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Stallard: On a point of order.

Mr. Speaker: I shall take points of order when the Minister has finished his statement.

Mr. Carr: It must also be borne in mind that the National Union of Mineworkers has made clear in its plan and in its intention—

Mr. Freeson: Is this part of the statement?

Mr. Carr: I am answering a question asked by the hon. Member for Hitchin. The miners' leaders have made quite clear that they are expecting and intending this overtime ban to have a severe effect on the output of coal very quickly. The National Coal Board has this morning confirmed to my hon. Friend the Minister for Industry that this is indeed almost certain to be the effect on the supply of coal and, therefore, on the supply of electricity. That being so, and to come to the second part of the hon. Lady's question, in view also of the uncertainty about oil supplies owing to the crisis in the Middle East, the Government are in no doubt that it is necessary straight away to take measures required to conserve fuel supplies of all kinds and to make sure, as far as it is possible, that fuel supplies are directed to the most essential purposes in order to maintain public life and work over the maximum period and with the minimum of inconvenience. That is the sole reason for taking these powers now, and I believe that we are justified in taking them now and that we could have been criticised if we had left it any longer.
As to the control of prices, the regulations contain as usual the power to make orders on that, and we shall deal with it when it comes—[Interruption.] As the hon. Lady knows full well, whether or not to use any of the powers in the regulations must be decided in the proper way by the matter coming before this House.
The hon. Lady asked why I chose last night to make a statement about picketing. I did not choose last night. I was at a meeting and I was asked a question—[Interruption.] No statement was issued by me. I am not in any way questioning the report that I replied to the question. I said nothing that I have not said publicly on many occasions over the last 18 months. I can see nothing wrong with reaffirming what I have said not only over the last few months but over the last year or more. While it is up to the chief constables in their own areas to take whatever action they may consider necessary to enforce the law—and I have no right to intervene and would not dream of doing so—it is my duty as Home Secretary, as it has always been the duty of Home Secretaries, to ensure that the police are properly


organised to carry out their particular duties.
All I did last night was to say, in reply to a question, what I had said before—namely, that in ensuring that this should happen we had established a central information room at Scotland Yard which would be able to report to me any such events, should they arise, and on which chief constables could draw, and also that arrangements for co-operation between police forces had been made more systematic than hitherto.
I also referred to the fact that this systematic organisation had been put to the test on one occasion already in relation to the very violent demonstrations in an attempt to close the ports on the North Lincolnshire coast during the dock strike in the summer of last year. All that I have said before, and I added nothing to it whatever.

Mr. Speaker: I made a slip of the tongue just now. I said that I hoped there would not be a point of order until the end of the Home Secretary's statement. I should have said, "Until the end of exchanges on the statement".

Mr. Atkinson: Thank you for your comment on points of order, Mr. Speaker. Perhaps we can have the opportunity to come back to that matter.
In what way does the Home Secretary claim that a disrespect for the law, and by whom, necessitates the introduction of emergency powers? What sort of discussions has the right hon. Gentleman had with Her Majesty the Queen? Has he discussed with her the disrespect shown for the law by certain sections of the community as the reason for asking for her permission for the Government to introduce emergency powers? What is the relationship, for instance, between a trade union declaring an overtime ban and the necessity for introducing emergency laws? What is the difference between this occasion and the many occasions since 1970 when trade unionists have decided that it is sufficient for them to work normal hours and that they should expect a decent living wage? Will the Home Secretary tell us where this disrespect for the law is and what it has got to do with emergency powers?

Mr. Carr: I never said for one moment that the reason for the proclamation was

disrespect for the law. If anyone thinks that I did, I will correct that at once. The hon. Member for Hitchin commented—it was a comment—that this is the fifth occasion on which the present Government have had to advise the Queen to make a proclamation of a state of emergency. She pointed out that this was not the way to govern in a democracy. I made another comment which I think I was justified in making, not as a reason for doing this, any more than the hon. Lady's comment was a reason for doing it. I said—

Mr. Kelley: On a genuine point of order, Mr. Speaker. Can you tell us whether there is any precedent for the Royal Personage making a proclamation of any kind to pre-empt a debate which this House has decided on before that proclamation was made?

Mr. Speaker: The House will follow the usual procedures. There will be a business statement—in a moment or two, I hope—indicating when the House can debate this matter. Perhaps the Leader of the House will not mind my saying I know that that debate will be quite soon.

Mr. Carr: All I commented was that the miners' leaders had said that they would have to break the Government if necessary. That is not democratic government either. The one and only reason for the state of emergency is the declared intention and belief of the miners that they are going to reduce supplies of coal very quickly when it is absolutely essential that we should conserve supplies in the public interest.

Mr. Skeet: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the miners, important as they are in this community, represent only ·04 per cent. of the total population? Therefore, is it not right that consideration should be given to the general public which constitutes 99·96 per cent. of the population? Bearing in mind the shortage of fuel, is this not the time to consider whether oil allocations should be introduced?

Mr. Carr: What we are considering is one thing only—the need for emergency powers to ensure the service of fuel supplies of all kinds in the public interest.

Mr. Loughlin: Will the right hon. Gentleman remember that, whatever state of emergency exists, he cannot dig coal with bayonets? Secondly, will he remember that people have a right to determine whether they shall work overtime or not, and that if they do not have that right they are living in a slave state? Thirdly, will the regulations enable there to be direction of labour, and if so, will he direct the Stock Exchange "spivs" and the land and building speculators, who have contributed more to the state of emergency than the miners ever will contribute?

Mr. Carr: Certainly the miners have the right not to work overtime, but, if they so cut coal supplies to the public that it is necessary to direct and ration supplies of fuel to keep public life going, then the Government have not only the right but the duty to take powers to conserve fuel.

Sir Robin Turton: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the vast majority of ordinary citizens will give him their support in efforts to preserve vital supplies to the nation in resistance to the demands of blackmail on the rest of the community?

Mr. Carr: I believe that my right hon. Friend is right in his judgment. I repeat that there is nothing illegal in not working overtime. What would be undemocratic would be to defy the law passed by this House in order to break the Government of the day, which is what the miners' leaders said they were going to do.

Mrs. Shirley Williams: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Would it not be much clearer if the Home Secretary simply withdrew his earlier statement about the unions breaking the law?

Mr. Speaker: That is not a matter for me.

Mr. Thorpe: Has there ever before been a precedent for a state of emergency being declared for a threatened ban on overtime? Would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that if a ban on overtime causes the collapse of an industry, and, indeed, a threat to the whole nation, it is a devastating indictment of the way that industry is run?

Mr. Carr: In my statement I referred to two circumstances—the overtime ban in the coal industry and the equivalent sort of action in the electrical power industry by the engineers. I specifically referred to both together. It is a fact that both of those together, particularly when taking into account what the miners have said—that they believe that the result of their action will be to cut coal supplies very quickly and because the National Coal Board has confirmed to the Government that that will be the effect of their action—have made it necessary to ensure that the life of the overwhelming majority of the community can continue. I never said they were breaking the law by not working overtime. [HON. MEMBERS: "You did."] What I said was that to break the law passed by this Parliament about pay and to do it with the deliberate intention of breaking the properly elected Government of the country is even more undemocratic than anything we have had to deal with so far.

Mr. Tom King: Since everyone is aware of the difficult situation with electricity, coal and oil, is it not clear that the Government will have the overwhelming support of the whole country and that they will be seen to be prudent and responsible in taking early powers to control in particular the unnecessary and wasteful use of power?

Mr. Carr: I believe it is essential, and I think that the whole House should reflect upon this, that in these circumstances, taking place as they do at a time when there is great uncertainty about the supply of oil, any Government would be wholly lacking in prudence not to take these powers early rather than late.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am in a difficulty. As the House knows, we have a debate about coal supplies to come, and we are also to have a debate, quite soon, which will be announced shortly, on these emergency regulations. I believe that the House would be well advised to move on.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: I will allow one more question.

Mr. Jay: Are the Government trying to blame the miners for last month's appalling trade figures? Instead of declaring emergencies, when will the Government take some effective steps to arrest the disastrous trade situation which their policies have created?

Mr. Carr: The answer to the first question is a categoric "No". There is absolutely no connection at all. The right hon. Gentleman must know this perfectly well. Dealing with the second part of the right hon. Gentleman's question, I am glad to say that exports are rising in volume—[Interruption.] and value rapidly. My right hon. Friend has referred to that. We have already taken action this morning.

Mr. Atkinson: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I seek to raise my point of order because the Home Secretary has come to the House to ask for emergency powers, ostensibly to do with our fuel and energy supplies, but really so that, if necessary, he has the power to imprison trade unionists.
The emergency powers give the Government the right to imprison organised workers in certain circumstances. If the Government are saying now that they wish to have these powers but do not intend to use them, or if they will give an undertaking that they will in no way interfere with the freedom of organised workers and have no desire in any circumstances whatever to do so, no matter what the event, and that they will not seek to imprison trade unionists, the Home Secretary should say so.
How do we debate what were the reasons given to Her Majesty the Queen when the right hon. Gentleman sought permission to introduce these emergency powers? The right hon. Gentleman has not given adequate reasons for the Government's applying for these powers. Will he now give an assurance—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I think I have allowed the hon. Member enough latitude. The answer to the point he raises is simple. This is debatable and will be debated quite soon. If the emergency regulations are not approved by the House, that will be the end of them.

Ordered,
That Her Majesty's Most Gracious Message be considered upon Thursday next.—[Mr. Prior.]

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. James Prior): In view of the statement just made by my right hon. Friend, the business for Thursday will be rearranged to allow a debate on Her Majesty's Most Gracious Message—

Mr. Arthur Lewis: Why not tomorrow? Will it upset the wedding?

Mr. Prior: —and on the emergency regulations which are being made today.

Mr. Harold Wilson: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us now whether the Prime Minister or the Chancellor intend making a statement today about the measures announced by the Government this morning outside this House? Is he aware that there are abundant precedents? Does he recall that when Bank Rate was raised to 7 per cent. there was a cry "crisis" and it was regarded as deserving a Prime Ministerial statement? Does he realise that the Government have raised the rate to nearly double that figure without the right hon. Gentleman having the guts to tell the House? Is he aware that when there have been similar effects on mortgages in the past and special deposits have been used we have had a ministerial statement? Are we to get one this afternoon?
Will the right hon. Gentleman further undertake that there will be a major debate in Government time to enable the Government to explain to the House the total breakdown of their policies? Is he aware that if he does not do this this afternoon we shall seek a Standing Order No. 9 debate so that we can debate the actions of the Government—and we shall seek to do it immediately? The right hon. Gentleman had better tell us this afternoon whether, and when, we are to have a major debate in Government time so that we can move a motion of censure on the Government.
Since the Prime Minister knew about these trade figures before the four by-elections—[Interruption.] Oh yes, they were known. The right hon. Gentleman cannot deny that. Will the Leader of the House undertake to have the Prime Minister explain why Ministers were making by-election speeches in his name saying that the Government's economic


policy was succeeding? Can we have an honest admission from the Prime Minister about this blatant deceit?

Mr. Prior: To answer the right hon. Gentleman's point about statements, it has not been usual for statements to be made following a call for special deposits, and the right hon. Gentleman knows that. It is up to the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends to put down a motion of censure, and the Government will respond to it. As for the right hon. Gentleman worrying about our attitude to the by-elections, I can quite understand why he is so upset.

Mr. Wilson: It is because we knew at the time of the deceit of right hon. Gentlemen and they have proved it today. Since the right hon. Gentleman talked about special deposits—

Mr. Rost: Tell us about the national interest.

Mr. Wilson: We are talking about the national interest. That is why we want this lot out.
The right hon. Gentleman spoke about precedents. There is no precedent for a 13 per cent. Bank Rate in this country. Only twice, for a short time before this Government came into office, was there even a 10 per cent. Bank Rate, in one case in the last century. Will the right hon. Gentleman now say whether, if we table a motion of censure tonight, we shall get a debate early next week?

Mr. Prior: We will, of course, discuss the time for debate through the usual channels, and after that I will certainly make an announcement.

Mr. Gorst: May I put it to my right hon. Friend that there is no emergency justifying the early debate which he has announced? While appreciating that oil is flowing more thinly through the jugular veins of Europe and that there is very little fire in the belly of the nation as a result of the proposed stoppages in the coal industry, may I suggest to my right hon. Friend that before invoking emer-

gency powers it might have been more successful to have invoked some section in the Industrial Relations Act? Or can my right hon. Friend confirm that the Industrial Relations Act is sterile in this respect?

Mr. Prior: My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has already explained why the Government have taken the action they have. The points which my hon. Friend makes will be relevant to the debate.

Mr. Ewing: Does the Leader of the House really expect the Government to be taken seriously when they create a sense of crisis in the country after one day of stoppage of overtime in the coalfield and yet the debate on the emergency powers is to wait until Thursday this week? To what order of priorities are the Government working?

Mr. Prior: I have looked up the precedents for when debates are held following the announcement of a proclamation such as that which the Home Secretary has announced this afternoon. It is generally the custom to have one, two, three or even more days between the statement being made and the regulations being discussed in the House. There is nothing unusual about this, and it is generally for the convenience of hon. Members.

NEW MEMBERS

The following Members took and subscribed the Oath:

Timothy Alan Davan Sainsbury, Esquire, commonly called The Honourable Timothy Alan Davan Sainsbury, Member for Hove.

Alexander MacPherson Fletcher, Esquire, Member for Edinburgh, North.

Alan James Beith, Esquire, Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed.

BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS BILL

Ordered,
That the Biological Weapons Bill be referred to a Second Reading Committee.—[Mr. R. Carr.]

COAL SUPPLIES

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Cormack.]

Leave having been given on Monday 12th November under Standing Order No. 9 to discuss:
The threat to coal supplies arising from the present situation in the coalmining industry.

4.26 p.m.

Mr. Patrick Cormack: I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for allowing me to initiate this debate. That you made the right decision has been emphasised by this afternoon's events. This is an occasion when Parliament should seek to make early and constructive comment, and I shall try to make my remarks in that spirit.
There is one thing upon which we can all agree, and that is that the situation which confronts us is serious and its early solution is of paramount importance. A threat to the nation's coal supplies is always a matter of utmost concern. In the context of recent events, it is more than that. Unless normal working is very quickly resumed in the coalfields, we shall face a major crisis which will affect every factory, office, shop and home in the land.
I know that right hon. and hon. Members opposite who are rightly proud of their party's long and honourable association with the mining industry will accept, as they did in the difficult days of 1972, that if my knowledge of the industry is small by comparison with theirs my concern for its future and for all who work in it is just as real.
We are not here today to call in question the industry's essential place in the nation's economy, and still less to disregard the spirit and courage with which miners daily face danger and difficulty. In recent months the vulnerability of imported fuel has emphasised the one and three dreadful tragedies have emphasised the other. Equally, however, no one can question that what the industry needs and the men who work in it deserve is a period of sustained growth and a sustained period of industrial stability and tranquility.
Coalmining has had more than its share of worries and difficulties, especially in the

past 25 years. One of my constituents said to me the other day—some 30,000 of my present constituents are, or have been, involved in or dependent on the industry—"We must know where we are going and that we shall have a real chance of getting there." Last Session's Coal Industry Bill went a long way to giving him the hope and confidence which he sought. Today there is a genuine fear that his confidence will be confounded. For the second time in two years the coal industry faces a major crisis. It will not as easily surmount the next as it did the last, and the last was grave enough for us all; its effects are still being felt today.
Although this debate is in many ways depressingly similar to the debates of January and February 1972, it is at least being held before attitudes have, I hope, hardened too much. Then I was critical of the way in which the Government handled the situation both before and during the strike. Before and in its early days there was a reluctance to take any initiative, and later, too, there were serious errors of judgment. At no time was the miners' case or resolve—the national consequence of their actions or the public support they engendered—fully understood. The wrong people were taken on in the wrong way at the wrong time and for the wrong reasons.
Many of us pointed this out at the time even though we were critical of some of the attitudes adopted and tactics deployed during the strike. We also suggested that there could be no real victor in that sort of fight. We were right. Many of the nation's present difficulties flowed from it, and most of them were at least increased by it. Without it there might not have been any need for phase 1, 2 or 3. But at least there has been on all sides a strong attempt to rebuild confidence within the industry.
The Government have shown their willingness to support the industry and have shown that they recognise the continuing essential strategic importance of coal, even though it has attracted some criticism from these benches in the process. At this moment the National Coal Board is ready to present proposals for the future size of the industry, reflecting its improved prospects in the present energy situation. But, as Mr. Norman


Siddall, Deputy Chairman of the Coal Board, said at the weekend,
Such discussions could be jeopardised by the imminence of industrial action in the industry.
He was not exaggerating when he said that. Even the coal industry cannot easily survive two massive crises within two years.
Nor can those who seek to disrupt the industry expect the same degree of public confidence and support they received in 1972. Then they were recognised throughout the country as being a special case, deserving of special treatment. They received it. Now, like so many other groups of workers, they are entitled to a decent increase, and in the opinion of many people in the country they have been offered one. It is easy to say that the coalminers deserve more. In many ways I agree, for the miners can never be adequately recompensed for the dangers which they face and the tasks which they perform.
Bearing in mind recent history and present circumstances, a union leadership which has turned down such an offer out of hand is not likely to capture the admiration or the sympathy of the people, especially as those people will include the old and infirm who will be most hit by such things as fuel shortages and power cuts, not to mention accelerating inflation should Government policy collapse. At the very least the union leadership has a duty to its own members and to their wives and families, as well as to the nation at large, to do everything within its rules and constitution to exhaust every procedure before calling for industrial action.
What does this offer mean? I am not pretending, nor would I seek to claim, that the offer is in any way a perfect one, but it means, according to the figures put out by the National Coal Board and not disputed by Mr. Gormley, that a quarter of all miners would get up to £6·30 a week extra, a half would get at least £4·75, and three-quarters would get at least £3·30. Only 15 per cent. would get the basic increases. In addition, there is the threshold agreement, and talks continue on Thursday on a productivity deal. This means for the men an increase not to be lightly dismissed, while for the industry there

is the chance of the smooth and sustained progress that it needs in the country's interests, especially in view of recent events.
Surely the offer ought to be put to the men who do the work? I may be wrong, but I think that they would take it. Only last week a miner's wife told me—

Mr. Peter Hardy: I must tell the hon. Gentleman that he seems to be moving in an unreal world. I have more miners in my constituency than he has. They know what deal they have been offered, and that has not prevented their leaving the pits in increasing numbers in recent months. The crisis which the hon. Gentleman is discussing is dwarfed by the crisis which will be caused by the removal of manpower from the pits.

Mr. Cormack: The hon. Gentleman must obviously speak for his constituents; I seek to speak for mine. But over recent weeks many people have come to see me in my constituency desperately concerned about the threat of further industrial action. Only last week I had a group of miners' wives who said "We do not want them out, and they do not want to come out". All I am saying is that in the privacy of a ballot the miners should have an opportunity to decide.
Only this weekend a man who was prominent in union affairs until recently said
There is a time and place for everything.
He added
A lot of us do not like your Government but we shall have a chance to say so fairly soon. I do not know what has got into some of the union leaders.
I do not know myself. As recently as 25th October Mr. Gormley was reported as saying:
My own feeling is that if the Executive decides that direct action should be taken we should not play about by instituting an overtime ban. I feel that we should go for the supreme exercise, as we did last year, if that is what we mean, and that means balloting the members to find out if they want a strike.
I do not know what lies behind the change which has so quickly come over him.

Mr. Harold Walker: The hon. Gentleman apparently is seized of the idea that a ballot of the industry would result in a different course of action, and I infer from the noises from


his hon. Friends that they share his view. If that is the case, why have not the Government exercised the power that they have to introduce a ballot under the provisions of the Industrial Relations Act? Is the hon. Gentleman really convinced that if the Government resorted to the use of that power the outcome would be that which he desires? It is my profound conviction, representing, as I do, a constituency in the Yorkshire coalfield, that, contrary to the hon. Gentleman's views, apparently based on what he has been told by his constituents, the outcome would be totally different.

Mr. Cormack: I cannot speak for the Government, of course. But there is a difference between a ballot organised by the miners themselves and any other kind of ballot. It is my personal belief that past ballots organised by the miners have been conducted properly. There is no suggestion that they have not been. I believe that if a ballot were held at the moment the offer would be accepted. In any event it should be put to the test—

Mr. J. D. Concannon: Would the hon. Member for Cannock (Mr. Cormack) accept the result?

Mr. Cormack: I cannot believe that the ordinary miner, who fought as valiantly as anyone for freedom of expression and for true democracy, wishes to see his own freedom to decide denied him or wishes to anticipate or usurp the verdict which will be contained in the nation's ballot boxes within the next 18 months. There will be a time and a process for everyone to pass judgment on the stewardship of this Government, but it cannot be in anyone's interests for the nation's economy to be threatened or weakened further and so made more difficult of management for any new Government, whatever their complexion or their European, industrial or social policies.
I hope desperately that before the present difficulties become a crisis there can be a turning back and that the message from this House today can be in essence, if not in detail, a unanimous one to the leaders of the NUM and to all workers in the mines saying "Give yourselves time to reflect and to pass a quiet and individual verdict on the offer.

In the meantime, do nothing to weaken the position of your industry and of the nation's regard for your calling."

Mr. Brynmor John: The hon. Gentleman says that he is confident that the miners would accept the offer if it were put to them by way of a ballot. In turn, would the hon. Gentleman accept the verdict of the miners if they went against his point of view? If the miners turned down the offer in such a ballot, would the hon. Gentleman press his own Government to make a higher award?

Mr. Cormack: Anyone who cares to study what I said during the last miners' strike will know that I am prepared to accept what is said in a ballot. I believe that it is in the national interest for the present situation to be resolved sooner rather than later. I cannot believe that the statements of Opposition hon. Members help the nation's economy, nor do they help the interests of the industry which they seek to defend—

Mr. John: Answer the question.

Mr. Cormack: I have answered it. The offer should be put to the miners. They should say what they want to do about the offer. If it were rejected out of hand—I do not think it would be—the situation would have to be assessed from there. But here we have a situation where the true processes of democracy and a proper respect for the processes of law—I do not mean that they are breaking the law now—are being put in jeopardy.
I hope that the message to the miners from this House today will be "For your own sake, for the country's sake and for the industry's sake, think carefully and make a quiet and reasoned judgment on the offer, which is yours for the taking, and which you can take without causing chaos and disruption all round you."

4.40 p.m.

Mr. Eric G. Varley: The Opposition welcome the decision to allow an emergency debate on the miners' pay claim, and we welcome it even more following the exchanges in the House earlier today.
We welcome the debate because it is time that the miners' case was put fairly to the people. It is a case which is in danger of being drowned by propaganda


handouts from the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, backed up by an obedient chorus from the Tory Press.
It is a case whose validity stands up not only on the basis of the arguments of the National Union of Mineworkers. It is a case which is unanswerable on the criteria proclaimed in this House by the Government themselves.
On Friday last week the Secretary of State issued, outside this House a statement which was so slick, so plausible and yet so totally phoney that he would never dare to have made it at the Dispatch Box. It painted a picture of the offer to the miners which gave the impression that every pay window at every pithead would be turned into an Eldorado.
Anyone reading the statement quickly is left with the deliberate impression that the average miner will get an increase of 13 per cent. Anyone reading the statement slowly will discover that the carrot which is dangled is even more juicy.
In that statement the Secretary of State said:
The offer means that three-quarters of the miners would get more than £3·20 a week extra. Half of them would get over £4·75 more. A quarter would be getting more than £6·25 extra, with those who work wholly unsocial hours getting over £9 a week more. This adds up to a 13 per cent. increase in the NCB's wage bill. In addition the miners can negotiate an efficiency scheme which would add another 3½ per cent. to the pay bill and increase earnings by up to another £1·50 a week. The average earnings provided by these increases do not take account of the fringe benefits which all miners enjoy and which are worth on average another £2·50 a week. Thus the miner on a three-shift rota working a 43·2 hour week"—
that is overtime, by the way—
could be getting under this offer an overall wage of £54 a week.
The Secretary of State piled everything that he could think of into that statement. I am only surprised that he did not add a notional sum to set against the free use of the pithead baths and free water for the miners' water bottles.
Why are Joe Gormley and the NUM so sceptical about the offer? It is because when it is examined carefully, it is seen to have many holes in it. The Secretary of State tells us that a miner working wholly unsocial hours could get an increase of more than £9 a week. How

many miners would qualify for that? The answer is 14,000 out of 250,000. To get it those lucky 14,000 would have to be on permanent night shift. I do not know what that would do to their family life, and I shudder to think what my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Renée Short) would have to say about it. What about the others? All those juicy extras the Secretary of State mentioned—unsocial hours, efficiency schemes and the rest—are confined to little more than 100,000 miners out of 750,000 in any given week.
Miners will not be attracted back into the pits by being told what they could earn if they worked all the unearthly hours that God sends. They are attracted by a basic wage which competes with other industries. That is why the miners tell me that the offer falls short on the Government's own criteria.
A year and three-quarters ago the Home Secretary, then Secretary of State for Employment, acknowledged in the House that miners' pay must be judged according to a special criterion. In a statement on the publication of the Wilberforce Report on last year's coal dispute, he pointed out the importance of what the report called "an adjustment factor". He said that the Government accepted that, because of this adjustment factor, the miners' claim, in the words of the report,
should be given exceptional national treatment.
The Wilberforce Report pointed out the need for this adjustment factor
when a distortion or trend has to be recognised as due for correction".
The report spelled out what it meant in paragraph 17:
a serious fall has occurred in the relative pay position of the mineworkers, when compared with those in manufacturing industry.
Paragraph 20 of the report stated:
the fall in the ranking of coalmining pay has been quite unwarranted".
That was what Wilberforce said, and that was what the then Secretary of State went out of his way to accept on behalf of the Government in his statement on 21st February 1972. What the Wilberforce Report said has not been carried out, as I hope to show shortly.
It is important that we should examine what has happened since Wilberforce


deplored the fall in miners' wages to below the average in manufacturing industries and gave an award which put that right. Miners' wages today are once more below the average for manufacturing industries. To put miners' wages level with the average in manufacturing industries needs an increase of at least £3, and to lift the wages back to the level at which Wilberforce put them needs an increase of almost £5 a week.
However, in the fine print of last Friday's statement by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry we see the admission that under the National Coal Board's offer only half the miners would return to the wage level of Wilberforce, and a quarter of them would still not be earning even the average wage in manufacturing industries.
It is no wonder that there is a drift today from the pits, as has already been mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Hardy), averaging more than 600 men a week, that the work force in the coal industry has fallen in the last year by more than 17,000, and that the miners, trained to win scarce fuel for the nation, are leaving the pits to earn better money making washing machines.
My hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Ginsburg) told us recently that miners were leaving the employment of the National Coal Board only to go back down the pits as employees of private contractors, to earn twice as much as they did previously. That is the sort of "lump" situation in the mining industry at a time when we need every ton of coal that can be dug, as Ministers have pointed out in trying to pressurise the miners into accepting the offer.
The position was cogently put last Wednesday by my hon. Friend the Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock), who said:
The Government … cannot have coal without miners, and they will not get miners without money."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th November 1973; Vol. 863, c. 1095.]
Money in the pits means the basic wage. Minimum wages are maximum wages. Mining is an industry in which there is no wages drift. It is unique, because all wage settlements are national wage settlements, with no adjustment through local

bargaining. That is why even in a period of statutory wage restraint the general level of wages in manufacturing industry has risen relative to miners' pay. For example, a power loader driver underground cannot have a new name invented for his job to get round the pay code.
It is a funny thing: the Secretary of State warns us about an energy crisis, which I think is very serious, but in facing that crisis the Government are not exactly being even-handed. When it comes to oil, they are ready to pay whatever is demanded of them, and wince with gratitude as the screw turns even tighter. When it comes to coal, it is a different matter.
Let us consider the contrast. Doctor Khene, Secretary-General of OPEC, last week flatly rejected the idea that consumers should be represented in negotiations on oil prices. He asked:
Why should oil taxes and prices be subject to international negotiations?
The Guardian pointed the moral a Dr. Khene's statement very well yesterday. It said:
the Government has already acknowledged that the nation must pay the producers' asking price for primary sources of energy, which include coal as well as oil.
The Government are quite happy as consumers to accept the diktat of the oil producers. But when it comes to coal the Government as consumers insist on dictating to the producers.
The matter was put very frankly by the Secretary of State for Employment last Sunday, when he said on the radio about coal pay:
There is not the room for negotiating with the Government that there used to be.
After listening to that broadcast, one of the miners at Ireland Colliery in my constituency told me "I wish Ireland Colliery were in the Persian Gulf. Then we would get whatever we asked for, and even have a say in the Government's foreign policy as well." To separate coal pay from energy policy is sheer, stupid short-sightedness.
But we are told that the Government have a solution. It was put forward by the Secretary of State in his broadcast last Sunday and echoed over and over again by the hon. Member for Cannock (Mr. Cormack) today. The Secretary of State complained that the miners were not


playing fair by refusing to have a ballot on the offer. But if a ballot is the great panacea of the Secretary of State, he does not have to wait for the miners to organise one.
I have in my hand something the Secretary of State should look at. It is a very secret document, in which everything can be found. Being a man of generous disposition, I am prepared to give him a copy. It is called the Industrial Relations Act 1971. Section 141 says:
Where it appears to the Secretary of State—
(a) that in contemplation or furtherance of an industrial dispute a strike or any irregular industrial action short of a strike has begun or is likely to begin; …
the Secretary of State may apply to the Industrial Court for an order requiring a ballot to be taken.
We on this side of the House are not advocating that there should be a ballot. It is advocated by Conservative Members and the Secretary of State. We realise, because we understand the procedures of the National Union of Mineworkers, that the union faithfully carried out its own democratic procedures. The Secretary of State and the hon. Member for Cannock are great advocates of the ballot. Why does not the Secretary of State use it? Does he have memories of the magical effect it had on the railwaymen, for example, If he will not do his own job, why does he expect the NUM to do it for him? My only comment on that conundrum is that the NUM does not want the Government to teach it democracy; it knows all about it, much better than the Government.

Mr. Adam Butler: So that the House may know exactly what the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues are advocating, is the hon. Gentleman saying that they recommend the NUM executive not to hold a ballot?

Mr. Varley: We are saying that the NUM has already consulted its membership extensively on the matter. The claim came from its national delegate conference. It was then lodged. The national delegate conference was recalled, and then the matter was put back to the branches, which voted unanimously for an overtime ban. The hon. Gentleman as someone who purports to represent miners in Bosworth—

Mr. Peter Rees: rose—

Mr. Varley: It is a very short debate. I would gladly give way, but many hon. Members want to speak.
The answer to the hon. Member for Bosworth (Mr. Adam Butler) is that the dispute will be settled only by good sense on both sides. The Government should give greater scope for constructive negotiations. The Home Secretary gave his blessing to a settlement within phase 3 which met the needs of the firemen. As champion of the adjustment factor, the Home Secretary can surely advise the Cabinet and his colleagues on how to do the same for the miners. In that way a settlement can be reached that will reverse the exodus of miners from the pits and ensure Britain the supplies of fuel she needs. It will allow the National Coal Board and the men in the pits to resume the hopeful progress they were making before the unnecessary dispute arose.
During the past few months Britain's coal industry has suffered three terrible pit disasters. The worst occurred three months ago at Markham Colliery in my constituency, where 18 men were killed in a cage that plunged to the bottom of a 1,400-foot shaft. Eleven men were severely injured. Seven are still in hospital. It is not widely known how dreadful the injuries were. The consultant at Chesterfield Royal Hospital, Dr. Geoffrey Baker, giving evidence on the first day of the public inquiry, said:
There were injuries the like of which many of us had never seen before. One man had his tibia driven right through the sole of his foot, and most of the casualties had spinal injuries, chest injuries or broken ribs.
I went to Markham Colliery on the day of the disaster, and heard a journalist ask one of the men who had been involved in the rescue work "Is there anything you would like to tell us?" The miner replied "Yes. Remember today when our next pay claim comes round."
The day after the Markham disaster, the Daily Express published a moving leading article which began:
Life and blood have always been the highest price we have paid for coal.
Those were fine words. Today, in return for the life and blood they risk every day when they go down the pit the miners are asking not for fair words but for fair wages. I am sure that the people of this country will look at the


true facts of the situation and, having done so, will not let the miners down.

5.0 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Peter Walker): The hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Varley) ended his speech by referring to the terrible mining accident that took place in his constituency and to other mining disasters. Hon. Members on both sides of the House will agree that much of the work connected with mining is of a dangerous nature and performed in bad conditions, but the manner in which the hon. Gentleman stated the Opposition's case is disappointing. He is mistaken in his view of the offer that is available to the National Union of Mineworkers.
First, I will try to put the debate in the longer perspective of what has happened to miners' wages and conditions in the last few years. One almost gains the impression from listening to the hon. Gentleman that under the Conservative Government the miners have done badly, whereas prior to that under his Labour Government they did rather well. In fact—as the hon. Gentleman knows, because he has commented on it—the situation of the miners has dramatically improved over the last 18 months. In the six years prior to 1970 there were two—

Mr. G. Elfed Davies: rose—

Mr. Walker: This is an important factor which puts into perspective the attitude that the Opposition are currently taking.

Mr. Davies: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Walker: In six years there had been considerable redundancy and the policy of successive Governments was a declining mining industry—

Mr. Davies: Is not the real fact that the miners, because of their loyalty in the 1950s and 1960s, did not get their just reward from any Government?

Mr. Walker: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. If it is true, as he says, that in the 1950s and 1960s the miners did not get their just reward, that fits in with my argument. I

wish to set out the adjustments that have recently taken place.
The first major reversal in policy towards the coal industry took place when I introduced the Coal Industry Act. That was a major Act which was under no pressure of industrial relations at the time. The Act was welcomed by the NUM, by the House and the country—and by the hon. Member for Chesterfield. That was the first major reversal of policy towards the coal mining industry that had taken place under either Labour or Conservative Governments for many years. It was a positive Government decision to stop the rundown in the industry and to endeavour to reverse that process. The Act gave support to the industry to the extent of £1,100 million. It contained provision for maintaining jobs, improving redundancy payments, helping sales and improving miners' pensions. The Act represented a major reversal of policy and was applauded by the NUM and by hon. Members on both sides of the House who represented mining constituencies.
In addition, we are having active negotiations with the National Coal Board to consider the manner in which the Government can invest in further developments in the mining industry. This week we were to be engaged in further talks with the National Coal Board to this end.
Prior to the present claim and offer, over the last few years there has been a substantial improvement in the total incomes of miners. For face workers in the last three-and-a-half years there has been an increase of about £10 a week in average earnings. For surface workers there has been an increase in average earnings of about £16 a week. That is a quite dramatic improvement in wage levels.
It is important to recognise certain features of the industrial action that has been taken. First, the action has been taken in the middle of the period of operation of the pay agreement made by the miners, which continues until March 1974. Six months before the expiry of the agreement the miners put in a further large claim. Four months before the expiry of that agreement they decided to take a particular form of industrial action.
Secondly, at the time the miners took the industrial action negotiations were


still going on about the possibility of some form of production agreement. While those negotiations were still going on, the miners decided on the date on which they would operate an overtime ban.
Thirdly, the nature of the industrial action means that the offer has not been put to the miners for ballot. Had the NUM decided to strike in support of the claim, the offer would have had to be put to the miners for ballot. Instead, the union has chosen a course of action which, according to Mr. Gormley, will within a short time have the same effect as strike action. Mr. Gormley said:
It is my estimation that if properly applied there will be few pits working after the first week of the ban.
Therefore his judgment, expressed before the ban was imposed, was that the action he was taking would have all the impact of strike action but for one difference: that it would not be compulsory under the rules of the union to put the offer to ballot.
Fourthly, the National Coal Board in making its offer under the provisions of phase 3 has taken advantage of all the aspects of phase 3 which were particularly designed to meet the problems of certain industries such as the coal industry in terms of the conditions under which the miners are working. Most people under phase 3 will be unable to apply for an increase anything as large as that which has been offered by the National Coal Board.
The hon. Member for Chesterfield suggested that a wrong impression was being given of the magnitude of the increases. He quoted from my first statement in which I set out the proportion of workers who would get certain wage increases and in no way challenged it. The basis of the increase is, first, the full use of the 7 per cent. that is allowed on basic rates. Then there is the full use of the 1 per cent. flexibility deal which is to be used to improve miners' holiday pay.
The biggest single impact to give assistance to the industry relates to the question of unsocial hours. Whereas up to the present there has been provision for only 2½p per hour for certain workers, not including face workers, in future under the board's offer there will be provision for a 17p per hour payment

for all miners who work these hours. Added to that is the possibility of negotiating—I must stress that negotiations were taking place—an efficiency deal which would add a further 3½ per cent. to the claim. This makes a total of 13 per cent., without any efficiency or production agreement, or 16½ per cent. with such an agreement.
The threshold agreement provisions in phase 3 would take account of any increase in the cost of living. This means that, whatever the rise in cost of living, the miners are guaranteed, without a productivity deal, a 6 per cent. increase in real living standards or an increase of nearly 10 per cent. if they take advantage of the productivity agreements.
The example I gave in my statement last Friday was in respect of the largest section of face workers. Let me give an illustration of the very lowest wage position in the mining industry. This is going to the other end of the scale and it is reasonable that we should be aware of this point. Let us first recognise that the lowest-paid miner is a 19-year-old unskilled surface worker who does not go down the pit and who at present receives a basic wage of £25.29. This sum would be increased under the offer to £27.59, plus the fringe benefit. With fringe benefits of £2.64 the total figure comes to £30.23 plus, on top of that, the benefit of taking part in productivity agreements. That is for the man at the bottom end of the scale, the 19-year-old unskilled worker who does not go down the pit.

Mr. Roy Mason: Will the Secretary of State also quote the case of an underground worker who is married and has a family and is expected to go underground at 6 o'clock every morning and to come out again at 1.30 for five days a week? He has been offered by the National Coal Board an increase of £2·57. This brings his total pay, without stoppages, to £29·80. Does the right hon. Gentleman think that that is an adequate basic wage for a married man with a family who goes underground five days a week?

Mr. Walker: The right Member for Barnsley (Mr. Mason) mentioned the figure without deductions. I quoted the lowest-paid man of all, the 19-year-old miner. If the right hon. Gentleman considers that the arrangements in the total


package, which amount in all to a potential 16½ per cent., adversely affect the situation, there is no reason why the offer should not be rearranged to meet that problem. If the right hon. Gentleman considers that those 25 per cent. of miners who will be getting £6·25 extra as a result of the agreement will be getting too much and that other categories should get more, there is no reason why this figure should not be redistributed.
The hon. Member for Chesterfield said that the miners' position had been misinterpreted by the Tory Press. The only newspaper that considers this offer unreasonable is the Morning Star. I quote, for example, from a recent editorial in the Daily Mirror—not normally a passionate supporter of the Conservative Government:
Officially, there is no strike. Just a ban on overtime. But the effect will be the same. Pits will have to close because of lack of safety maintenance. At a moment when oil supplies are in doubt, coal will cease to be dug. At a moment when mining is all set for expansion and development, coal will cease to be dug. Last year when the miners were on strike for six weeks, they were helped by public sympathy. Most people thought their case was good. It will be hard for the miners to win the same sympathy this winter.
It must be remembered that, with all the talk about improving the conditions of miners, this is the second best offer ever made to the mining industry. It is linked to the arrangements in phase 3 and cannot be eroded by rises in cost of living because of the threshold arrangement which will protect it.
This takes place in a situation of considerable national significance. This is a time when nobody will deny that we wish to obtain every energy resource we can. Without any additional strike or action at all, miners have been offered a total package which could amount to 16½ per cent. They have decided on industrial action which will cut us off from coal supplies at a time when they are very much needed. If 13 million tons of extra coal is used by the Central Electricity Generating Board, this could save the country 6 million tons of oil at this crucial time. This is a time when the effects on power as a whole could have a considerable impact on the potential growth and our whole export performance. This is a time when it is

vital for the industry to recognise the damage which it will do to its own future.
I think I can claim that by piloting through the House the Coal Industry Act I was the first Minister, Labour or Conservative, to reverse the policy towards the coal industry. I can claim, before there were any industrial threats, to have taken part in the organisation of the phase 3 proposals so that miners would get a 16½ per cent. offer in the circumstances. I believe that the mining industry has a considerable potential for the future and in terms of the miners who work in the industry. We can claim that their position in the last three and half years in relation to both the cost of living and total wage increase, has improved substantially faster than it did in the previous six years. As a result of the present offer, a still greater improvement is available.
I find it surprising that the Opposition in face of such an award—and remembering that we are facing a national energy crisis, with the good will that could be created by extra production—have decided this afternoon not to urge that the offer is put forward on a normal basis. I am surprised that they take the view that a 16½ per cent. offer four months before the present agreement expires is not justified. Such a view can only be damaging to our energy resources. For this reason I hope that in the national interest both the miners and the Opposition will think again.

Mr. Mason: Perhaps the Secretary of State, before he concludes, will explain something to the House. If his policies have been so successful, why is it that during his Government's tenure of office 28 pits have closed, 31,000 men have left the industry and men are now leaving the industry at around 700 men per week? Does he think that the basic increase of £2·57 will rectify that situation?

Mr. Walker: I must say that for the right hon. Gentleman to put that question to me when at the time that he had responsibility—[HON. MEMBERS: "Answer the question."] I will answer it. I have just been asked to explain about 28 pits being closed under this Government. Yet when the right hon. Gentleman was responsible 276 pits were closed and 185,000 men were made redundant.

5.20 p.m.

Mr. George Grant: I accept that there is a serious situation in the mining industry. Therefore, I welcome this debate.
I appeal to the Government, even at this late stage, to set up an immediate inquiry into wages in the mining industry and into why 600 men a week are leaving it.
I should declare an interest. I am an ex-coal miner, a sponsored Member of the NUM, and I live amongst miners.
My contribution to the debate will consist of my estimation of how the miners view this wage offer by the National Coal Board. They look upon this offer as a 7 per cent. increase—£2·30 for surface workers and £2·57 for underground workers. The media have put over to the public that the miners have been offered 16½ per cent. to 17 per cent. The miners contend that this is not so.
Every section of the industry is affected differently by the unsocial hours payment. Only 3 per cent. of miners would qualify for the full payment. I estimate that only 20 to 25 per cent. of the total hours worked in the mining industry would qualify for the unsocial hours payment of 17p.
The productivity limit of 50 per cent. of the general settlement is regarded by the miners as airy-fairy. I remind the House that in February 1972 Wilberforce advocated the setting up of productivity bargaining for the mining industry. Yet 20 months later no progress has been made in this direction. The union is in difficulties in this connection. Whilst other industries were getting down to productivity bargains for relinquishing restrictive customs and practices, the miners were co-operating with the NCB to try to make the pits viable. Therefore, they could not get down to that kind of negotiation.
At Ellington and Lynemouth collieries, which operate five or six miles under the North Sea, miners have agreed to a five-shift system in order to get full utilisation of expensive machinery. At Ashington colliery there is a four-shift system. Apart from the social unheaval and the effects on family life, these shift systems involve miners in travelling to and from work, often having to walk miles to get there, when there is no public transport.
A fortnight ago I put a series of Questions to the Minister relating to the mining industry. I asked for the manpower figures for the industry in October 1972 and October 1973. In October 1972 there were 267,000 miners. By October 1973 the figure had gone down to 251,000. I also asked for the total number of vacancies for men in collieries in each National Coal Board area. The Minister said that the Chairman of the National Coal Board would be writing to me on this matter. I have not yet got the answer.
Miners are leaving the industry for better-paid and cleaner jobs. That is why I ask for an inquiry. Coal is important to this nation, and we need miners. To keep and attract miners the National Coal Board must pay wages which will achieve this purpose.
The miners' application is for £35 for surface workers, £40 for underground workers and £45 for power loading. In today's climate of wages in this country, can anybody say that that is unrealistic for the important job that is carried out by miners?
The Minister, both inside and outside this House, has said that under this offer, with overtime, miners can earn £50 a week. I should have thought that, in the interests of the nation and the mining industry, the Government would be seeking to keep miners healthy by getting them to the surface, not down the pits for more overtime.
I should point out that, unlike as in other industries, it is unlikely that a miner can work for 50 weeks in the year. I can illustrate this by my own experience, and I am no exception. I have had a broken leg and three cartilage operations, I have lost a finger and I have a miner's chest. The condition of my chest would not allow me to go to a pit today. These considerations must be taken into account when we talk about pay in the mining industry. We should not ask miners to work overtime to get above the national average.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: Put that over on the media, Peter, when you get on.

Mr. Grant: Private contractors in the mining industry doing jobs like drifting, sinking shafts and boring are paid twice the wages of miners employed by the


NCB. In my constituency about 7 per cent. of the male working population are unemployed. Yet daily on Tyne-Tees Television the National Coal Board advertises vacancies. What is the position in areas where there is keen competition for labour, such as the East and West Midlands and South Yorkshire? Miners are leaving the mines daily, and there is an acute shortage of labour in these most profitable coalfields.
I accept that it is the Government's responsibility to curb inflation. At the same time, the energy requirements of the nation are of paramount importance.
The miners' feelings were summed up in the recent ballot on the overtime ban. Every branch in the country voted for the ban.
On the second day of this overtime ban I, as an ex-miner, voice a word of warning. I said at the beginning of my speech that I appealed to the Government to set up a committee of inquiry into wages in the industry and into why men are leaving the industry. It is late, but there is still time. With every day that passes the problem will become greater. In the first week power production might be only slightly affected, but as the weekend approaches the real crunch will come, especially for pits under the sea with their problems of water, pumps, and maintenance of machinery.
It is not unreasonable for me, as an ex-miner, to expect that when it comes to the second week men will be sent home. Men who travel to work in the middle of the night will be turned away. They might accept that on the first or second occasions, but if it happens during the second and third weeks some colliers will say "To hell with this." That is how I see the position. If we are not careful, it will be a question not of balloting about a strike but of drifting into a strike situation.
The energy situation is serious, and I repeat what I said earlier. I earnestly appeal to the Government to appreciate the true position in the industry and to consider why miners are leaving at the present rate. It is not only face workers who are going but engineers, overmen, deputies, craftsmen and skilled face workers. Right across the board men are leaving the industry, and I ask the Gov-

ernment to set up this inquiry before it is too late.

5.31 p.m.

Sir Paul Bryan: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock (Mr. Cormack) on getting his debate and on the moderate tone in which he put his case.
I read in The Times this morning that the Government had heard with dismay Mr. Speaker's decision to grant this debate. I doubt whether the Government still view it with dismay. The start of an industrial dispute, or even before it takes place, is the vital time to get one's case across and to form opinion. This debate has given the Minister the opportunity to put the National Coal Board's case in Parliament for the first time.
Looking back at the last miners strike, which was not so long ago, one realises that it was due to many reasons. But if one had to name the leading cause why the miners won the strike, I would accept that it was because the Government misjudged public opinion. This time if the miners go on strike it will be because they in turn have misjudged public opinion.
During the last strike I was a Minister at the Department of Employment. I cannot claim, or admit, to have taken any particularly important decisions then, but at least I had a ringside seat. I saw the Government make a number of misjudgments. We underrated the strength of the miners' case. I say that quite plainly in retrospect.
The general percentage increase that was offered then of 9 to 10 per cent. seemed fair in relation to the wage awards to the gas, electricity and other industries, but what we underrated was the number of true anomalies in the industry. There were anomalies not only for the lowest-paid workers but among those higher up the scale who had not received wage increases for several years.
The miners' case came across on television every night, and public opinion was gradually won over. It was won over not only by the actual claim but by the claim in relation to the rigours and difficulties of working in the pits.
Public support for the strike was important for three reasons. First, it encouraged the leadership of the strikers.


Secondly, in the strike last year an important factor was that picketing took a powerful part in its success. I do not believe that if the public had not had sympathy with the strikers they would have tolerated the kind of picketing which took place then. They would not have supported mobile picketing, with carloads of pickets massing at key points in the country. Without the support of public opinion that kind of action would not be tolerated. Thirdly, public opinion played a part in the final findings of the Wilberforce Committee. The findings could not have been so generous without the backing of public opinion.
If the miners go on strike now they will confront the Government in an entirely different situation. Those who were sympathetic on the last occasion will be less sympathetic today. When one talks about public opinion, one has to remember that one is talking about the 99 per cent. of people who make their living in industries other than mining. This majority has not yet featured in the debate.
Millions of workers are subject to a statutory wage restraint. Many of them are suffering anomalies which they regard as particularly unfair to them. One of the inherent troubles of any statutory incomes policy is that it eventually gives rise to anomalies. Those workers—and I know more about their industries than about mining—take the view that the phase 3 arrangements have almost been set out for the special benefit of miners. The unsocial hours provision and others appear to workers in other industries to be tailor-made for the mining industry. I know of no other group of workers who could squeeze a 16 per cent. overall increase out of the phase 3 structure.
In short, I believe that before taking action of this sort it should be realised that we all depend upon each other. Comparability is with us for ever. I agree that the miners deserve high priority in any statutory incomes policy because of the conditions and importance of their work; but that priority is exactly what they have been given in phase 3. What is now being asked—and this is what the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Varley) claimed—is for them to be given something over and above phase 3 which is not open to anybody else.
I believe that that is too much for the rest of the country to swallow. If the miners go on strike now, it will appear to others that they are taking advantage of a crisis for their own ends at the expense of those lower down the queue.

5.37 p.m.

Mr. John Pardoe: I have no miners in my constituency, but I do have some coal and energy consumers, and most of my constituents are deeply concerned about the likely shortage of fuel, cuts in electricity supplies and an increase in either oil or coal prices.
I do not think that they have any magic beliefs about, or formulae for, settling this dispute, and I suspect that all and every one of them would accept what has been said this afternoon by right hon. and hon. Members on this side of the House about the dirtiness of the miners' trade and the hardship of their job. There will, therefore, be, as there always is, immense sympathy for the people in this industry.
Nevertheless, there are many questions which have to be asked. The first question must be put to the Government, some questions must be put to the Opposition, and some to the unions. The first question is to the Government: why not have a ballot under the Industrial Relations Act? The Secretary of State did not answer that question, although it was posed several times. If the right hon. Gentleman is embarrassed about holding a ballot under the Act, ought not we to change the Act? It is not much good having useless luggage around a statutory—

Mr. James Sillars: As the hon. Gentleman intends to put a number of questions to others, perhaps I may put one question to the Liberal Party. Does he suggest that the Government should hold a ballot under the Industrial Relations Act?

Mr. Pardoe: Indeed not. That was the point I was making. I was going on to say that I know only too well—as I think all right hon. and hon. Members do—why the Government are not to hold a ballot. They fear, quite rightly, that if there were a ballot it would not be on whether the latest offer should be


accepted. If it were on that issue, the hon. Member for Cannock (Mr. Cormack) might be right. He may know which way it would go. The fact is that the miners would interpret any ballot under the Act as a ballot on the Act.
It is true that I and my Liberal colleagues voted for the Second Reading of the Industrial Relations Bill, but on the condition that substantial changes were made to it. We did not vote for the Third Reading. We voted against that, because those changes were not made. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Outside this House it is perfectly reasonable, to a reasonable being, to vote for the principle of law reform in industrial affairs but not to vote for some of the detailed provisions. It is only in the House that the bigotry and idiocy of the two-party system dictates that men and women should do unreasonable things, constantly, preferably all night, and on every day of the week. But this House is not a reasonable institution. It is a repository of unreason.
As the Government will not call a ballot, why did not the union call a ballot? Why did the union go for a form of industrial action which specifically bypassed the rules in its constitution, which would have demanded a ballot on a strike?

Mr. Concannon: I should imagine that the National Union of Mineworkers has consulted its members, in accordance with its rule book, more than any other union anywhere. If the hon. Gentleman wants to know whether it has had a ballot, I can assure him that I have had meetings around my constituency last weekend and the previous weekend which were attended by as many as 500 men. These have not been unanimous. One of my branches did not vote. That happened to be my transport branch. But that is all. To say that the men have not had a ballot is fallacious.

Mr. Pardoe: It is not fallacious, because they have not had a ballot. It is not fallacious by any standard of use of the English language, but we must use the English language as best we find it. One must ask why they have not had a ballot. Their rules say that they must have a ballot for a strike.
This industrial action will inevitably lead to a strike in a roundabout way, be-

cause pits will be closed and the men will be out of work, and we shall have got a strike without having held a ballot. All that I ask of the union is whether this is a way of getting around its rule book. If hon. Members are so certain of the result of a ballot—they may well be right—and if all these deliberations have been taken, let us have the ballot and the result. There is no point in having an overtime ban which brings coalmining to a stop. One might as well have a strike and be done with it. If Mr. Gormley is right, we shall have a strike by default by the end of next week.
I turn to the aspects of inflation involved in this matter. Will the Government give us some figures which will help both us and our constituents to make up our minds? By how much will the price of coal rise if this offer is accepted by the union? By how much will it rise if the offer is increased by, for instance, 3 per cent. or 5 per cent? By how much will the price of coal rise by the end of this year if the industry continues to lose miners at the rate of 600 to 700 a week?
In Britain now there is a terrifying danger of inflation. We have already seen wholesale prices and prices of manufactured goods escalate in the last two months at the rate of 18 per cent. a year. That will filter through into the retail index. I do not have an interest in inflation. Oppositions in Britain usually have an interest in inflation. The Conservative Party, when in opposition, behaved as though it had such an interest, as do the Opposition today. I have an interest in keeping down prices and keeping down those wages which enter into prices. I believe in a long-term prices and incomes policy.
We need to know from the Government exactly what effect on the price of coal this offer is likely to have and what effect it would have, for instance, if it was raised by 3 per cent. or 5 per cent. The Government made a fundamental mistake in trying to design stage 3 to accommodate the miners. I never thought that that was possible. Stage 3 is so full of holes that it is a sieve indeed. It clearly has not worked. It has not bought off the miners. It would have been far better to have a lower norm in stage 3 but to have had specific provisions for the investigation of special cases.
It seems that the miners are undoubtedly a special case. It is always easy to say that they are a special case. But the economic facts of life have changed, in particular in relation to an energy policy and the competitive price of energy since stage 3 was invented. The miners will now get what the economic facts of life in relation to energy throughout the world will give them. Why should they not go for that? The price of alternative fuels has risen substantially, even since they worked out their demand. The economic price of alternative fuels is likely to rise even more within the next month. Therefore, it seems sensible that the policy in relation to miners' pay should take account of the competitive situation of other fuels. It seems sensible to set up an inquiry taking this into account. It was not taken into account when stage 3 was designed.
We cannot, in the present fuel situation, take on the miners. The country cannot take them on. The Government cannot do it. Anyone on the Government benches who thinks that it would be sensible to have a General Election on this issue, even in view of the results of the last four by-elections, is asking for serious social trouble and is a fool. We must come to an agreement. Therefore, the Government must set up some machinery that allows miners to come to an agreement, taking account of the competitive situation with regard to other fuels.

5.48 p.m.

Mr. Adam Butler: The debate is certainly about very serious and sad matters. The hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe) has indicated how serious they are by showing that he, at least, is prepared to give way to any wage claim put forward by any body of men who are in a position to twist the arm of the Government. I am sorry that the hon. Member should have spoken in the way he did.
There has been some query as to the necessity for the debate. Earlier this afternoon there was the question whether a state of emergency should have been declared. I was not then fortunate enough to catch the eye of Mr. Speaker. However, I believe that there are good reasons for the state of emergency being declared now. One reason is that reports

from the pits in the South Midlands area are that the loss of coal on the first day of the working of the overtime ban was 40 per cent., and that was after full weekend working on maintenance. That is not just a single day. It is supported by evidence from the Warwickshire pits, which have been operating an overtime ban for two weeks. They have lost production of the same order of magnitude.
In the National Union of Mineworkers executive I see two different approaches to this problem. The first, if I may so call it, is the responsible attitude, concerned with the future of the industry and the relationship between recruitment and wage levels paid. The other approach is that which puts forward a policy of deliberate confrontation with the Government on political grounds. By the public utterances which we have heard, it would seem that the supporters of this latter line are not only more vocal but are in the majority. I would say quite simply to them "If you genuinely want to help your members, you are going the wrong way about it".
When the Coal Industry Act was passing through this House, I said that it was an act of faith by the Government. If the executive of the NUM now thinks that by kicking the Conservative Government in the teeth it will get its way it is mistaken. The question of the ballot has probably been mentioned in the contributions of all right hon. and hon. Members so far. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that it is deceitful to undertake a course of action, such as an overtime ban, which is deliberately intended to bring about a shutdown of the nature which could have been produced by a strike, without going through the democratic processes for which the union is quite rightly admired throughout industry. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Varley) did not answer my question on the policy of his colleagues about suggesting a ballot to the union.
The other strand to which I want to refer is the moderates, or those who produce a moderating influence within the executive. Moderation has historically been shown by the miners in the Midlands, such as those in my constituency, and I have every reason to believe that the same moderation prevails today. Their case rests on the need to stop the decline


in manpower, which is running at the rate of over 10 per cent. per annum, and to attract more men into the industry. It seems to be argued almost as a secondary measure that underground work would still be inadequately rewarded with an average basic rate of about £40 for those on morning or afternoon shift.
The hon. Member for Morpeth (Mr. George Grant) spoke eloquently, and drew the attention of the House to the fact that so many surface workers now suffer physically because of long periods underground when they were younger; and they have much less opportunity for overtime.
There is some substance in the moderates' argument, but, as my right hon. Friend said, they really must blame the lack of performance of earlier Governments, not least of the Labour Government in the six years up to 1970. It was during that period that the miners crashed down the relativity ladder.
In an ideal world it is very easy to say that miners should be paid £50, £60 or more per week, but in our imperfect world everybody claims that he is a special case; and the Liberal spokesman would give way to every special case. The fact is that miners have had above average increases over the last two years, and the present offer is the second largest in their history. I believe that it must be accepted, but, at the same time, there should be a Government commitment to continue to improve their position in relation to others.
Because the package is higher than other wage settlements at the present time, it is reasonable to assume that the rate of reduction in manpower in the industry will be reduced, but in view of the need for coal this may not be sufficient. However, it is wrong to try to build up manpower too substantially, because the future of mining in the long term is not very secure.
Furthermore, do we really want to see our men continuing to work underground? I believe that it was the hon. Member for Morpeth, who knows more about this subject than others, who suggested that we should not want to see an increase in underground working. But if we do not want to build up manpower, the alternative is increased productivity, and

I must be critical both of the National Coal Board and of the NUM executive for not concluding a productivity agreement, such as was contained in the Wilberforce proposals. I am informed that at present the increase in the productivity rate is little better than 2 per cent. per annum.
The NUM looks for a national productivity agreement. I can understand some of its reasons, but I must say, as I have said in earlier debates, that if it is to be at all effective we must have area or colliery productivity agreements. I am not suggesting that we should revert to the old piece-rate system, with all its risk. It is possible to work out an effective and rewarding scheme, such as has been done in the case of factory productivity schemes and group productivity schemes, and if an experiment is needed I believe that the Leicestershire pits are ready to act as guinea pigs. So I would ask my right hon. and hon. Friends to seek some way of offering a higher percentage for genuine productivity deals within this industry.
The moderates' attitude is that an overtime ban will not cause undue harm to the nation, and that they just want to draw attention to their case but not to cause disruption. I have referred to the effects experienced so far in the South Midlands area. There is no doubt that the figure of 40 per cent. loss of production will rapidly grow to 50 per cent., and will deteriorate quite rapidly still further over the coming weeks, and that a stoppage will have been brought about without the benefit of a ballot. I understand the theory behind the moderates' case, and I hope that I understand the stand which they are taking. In practice, however, the results of this action will lead gradually to disaster at a time when the Arabian stranglehold, however unintentionally, is cutting off another source of energy.
My hon. Friend the Member for Howden (Sir P. Bryan) spoke from experience, and drew our attention to the importance of public opinion in this matter. The public, knowing the restrictions on their own earning power, knowing the increases paid to the miners in the last two years, and taking into account the twin pressures of inflation and the energy crisis, consider the offer fair. I am sure that they are right.

5.59 p.m.

Mr. Joseph Harper: If hon. Members had to sign a register of interests, I should have to sign it. I have a vested interest in this subject. I have a son working in the industry. He is one of the men we are debating today.
I wish the Press would get the facts right. The Press is very wide of the mark when it writes about the number of men working in the pits. This arises from the fact that men are leaving the pits in such numbers. The hon. Gentleman who is so assiduously working on the Government Front Bench—I refer to the Minister for Industry—stated on 6th October that at that date there were 251,328 men in the pits, in contrast to the up to 280,000 men of whom the Press speaks.
Two phenomena have occurred in the last 24 hours which have left us bewildered. The first was the acceptance by Mr. Speaker, with great alacrity, of the application for a debate under Standing Order No. 9, which has enabled the hon. Member for Cannock (Mr. Cormack) to raise this question. The second has been the introduction by the Government of a state of emergency after 24 hours of an overtime ban. That will go down as an all-time record.
This enables us to debate the energy crisis, to consider the whole problem nationally and internationally, and to place the miners' case before the Government, as the hon. Member for Cannock tried to do, before the situation deteriorates further.
We on this side have pressed over the years for an overall energy policy in which coal plays an integral part. Present and subsequent events will prove that we have been correct all along the line. However, this does not give us any cause for satisfaction, because it is our people who have got hurt in the process.
I shall repeat some figures given by my right hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley (Mr. Mason) in an interjection. In the first nine months of this year 14 pits were closed. Since 18th June 1970, a date which leaves a nasty taste in my mouth, over 33,000 men have been displaced or left the pits, and 28 pits have been closed.
I do not seek to apportion blame for that, because the Labour Government

played their part in that process, as was pointed out by the Secretary of State. The tempo has, unfortunately, increased, as the hon. Member for Bosworth (Mr. Adam Butler) said, so that the men are now leaving at the rate of 700 a week.
There has been a lot of "bull" talked about ballots. My reply to that is that the miners are balloting in the only way they know—that is, with their feet: they are leaving the industry. As the hon. Member for Bosworth said, we must try to make conditions in the industry so attractive that we can prevent men from leaving it and attract those who have left back into it.
I shall not enter into the realm of the Industrial Relations Act and how it could be operated. I am only pleased that the Government have not tried to use Section 141 of that Act, because that would have made matters dangerously worse.
To sum up this part of my speech, the industry is bleeding to death and the Government's job is to act like all good first-aid men and arrest the haemorrhage—in other words, to arrest the flow of men from the industry and to attract back those who have left. The only way of doing that is to increase miners' wages. More than a year ago Lord Wilberforce gave miners the best wage increase they had ever had, or perhaps I had better say that he advocated that they should be paid a certain amount and the Government, to their chagrin, accepted Lord Wilberforce's findings.
It would take an increase of £6 across the board for every man jack who goes down into the pits to bring us back to the level at which Wilberforce left us. Therefore, are the miners asking for too much? I believe that they are not, because the Wilberforce Report was a detailed and just report which was accepted by everybody. That report put us very nearly at the top of the league. Since then, like my own home team, we have slipped alarmingly, and the miners are not liking it one bit. They want to be back at the top of the league, where the industry demands that they should be.
We face rising discontent and seething unrest. The National Coal Board has gone as far as it can under phase 3, as the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe) said, and it is now up to


the Government. It is not a case of the miners versus the Government or of the Government versus the miners. I certainly hope that it is not the latter. All we want is a fair and just settlement.
A great deal of cant has been talked about productivity deals. I have worked in the industry. There comes a time when saturation point is reached. Under the old system one could always spend money on mechanisation and automation to get increased output. However, there comes a time when the whole industry is fully mechanised and automated and it is no longer possible to achieve increased productivity. To me, productivity deals mean so much extra produced per man shift. If they do not mean that, I am at a loss.

Mr. Adam Butler: Is the hon. Gentleman saying that there is no scope for a productivity deal in the industry at present?

Mr. Harper: There is still scope, but it is very limited. We cannot now achieve the huge increases in productivity which the hon. Gentleman, if he had had further time, could have said occurred in the mid-1950s and through to the 1960s. We are reaching saturation point. There is not much to come there, and the miners realise that.
This morning I heard an announcer on the radio programme "What the Papers Say" state that the Government were taking the miners on. This is all wrong. I deplore that such comments should be made in the Press or on the radio or television. Such statements exacerbate the position and do not make the job of Government or trade unions any easier in trying to reach a settlement.
This country has a reputation for muddling through. However, the muddling has got to stop at some time. It is better stopped now. Planning decisions should be taken immediately, not tomorrow, not next week, not after Christmas, not in the new year, but today.
This country should not be subjected to Arab blackmail. As coal is at the moment the only readily accessible indigenous fuel we have got with any certainty, it should be utilised to the full to fill the gaps in energy that are occurring now and are still to come.
For example, Governments of both political complexions have spent a lot of money on the Magnox system of reactors. We must now depend solely on the advanced gas-cooled reactors. I hope that this will not be taken as a pun, because I do not like puns. The advanced gas-cooled reactors have not advanced. They are years behind the times. Something must fill the gap. The only thing that can fill the gap is the fuel known as coal until the nuclear programme is ready to take over. If we were so foolish as to let coal run down, we should be in the position of having to buy reactors from America, and that would be just pouring money out, the same as we are pouring it out today to the sheikhs in the Gulf and in the Middle East.
I want now to say something positive. It is easy to destroy. It is harder to be positive. I suggest that the Government should do the following things. First, they should give the immediate go-ahead to Drax B and West Burton to start building. Secondly, the Central Electricity Generating Board's policy of changing coal-fired power stations to oil-fired should be stopped forthwith and Mr. Hawkins should be told to get those that have been changed over to oil-burning back to coal-burning.
Thirdly, we should proceed with the task of obtaining, after more research, oil from coal. Oil-from-coal plant could be built next to the pits. It is cheaper and quicker to build such plant than it is to build power stations. We need extra oil, and there would be a yield of 3½ or 4 barrels of oil to the ton from this source.
Fourthly, we should start immediately to exploit the Selby coalfield with its rich reserves. If we are to keep allowing the miners to leave the pits or not make any attempt to stop them from leaving, it will be no good if the National Coal Board says that the seams there are 27 ft. thick. Seams 27 ft. thick are no good without miners. Once the miners have left the pits they cannot be persuaded to return. Before they get really settled in the jobs they have gone to, we must try to get the men back.

Mr. Alexander Wilson: My hon. Friend has made four valuable points, but I suggest that a prerequisite


to their implementation must be the establishment of a national fuel and energy policy, with a Cabinet Minister in charge. My hon. Friend's four proposals could be encompassed within that formula, could they not?

Mr. Harper: On the overall energy situation, I am in full agreement with my hon. Friend. At the moment, however, I am talking about the men leaving the pits. They leave the pits because other jobs are easier, more comfortable, less dirty and less dangerous. A few days ago, travelling on a bus in London, I looked across at the advertisements—I always find my eye attracted to the advertisements, and, of course, that is why they are put there—and I saw that London Transport was advertising for staff, with a starting wage at just under £30 a week and the prospect after a couple of years, if the chaps pass their test, of going up to £41, with overtime. Good heavens—I am glad that our mines are not nearer to London or we should be losing men not at 700 a week but at 1,000 a week.
The Government should act positively and at once. There will be real danger if they do not. As my hon. Friend the Member for Morpeth (Mr. George Grant), said, there is the risk that craftsmen still in the industry, as well as men in middle management and the youngsters, will continue to leave the industry in great numbers.
If the Government cannot in the last resort think of a solution, I give them one. Hand it back to Lord Wilberforce. He will make something of it.

6.12 p.m.

Mr. David Crouch: The hon. Member for Pontefrat (Mr. Harper) and his hon. Friend the Member for Morpeth (Mr. George Grant) have added to the debate a note of sincerity, pleading that we recognise the seriousness of the industry's position, with so many men leaving week by week for the obvious reason, as they say, that pay and working conditions in the coal industry do not compare favourably with pay conditions elsewhere. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) should know that I have frequently spoken in debates on the coal industry,

not because I would pretend to be a miners' Member of Parliament but for several other reasons.
Not the least of those reasons is that I have many miners living in my constituency, although the pit there has been closed. My principal concern, however, like that of the hon. Members for Morpeth and for Pontefract, and, I suspect, all the Members present today, is that I am genuinely anxious for the progress and well-being of this key industry which is vital to the security of our economic progress. I put it as high as that. What motivates us one way or another in this dispute is our concern to ensure that the industry continues in good health.
I recommend anyone outside the House who contemplates the dispute which is building up between the miners and the National Coal Board—and, perhaps more especially, between the miners and the Government—to look at the calm way in which we in this Chamber who are concerned about the same matter can debate it and put forward constructive suggestions for a way out of the impasse. We must as a House of Commons make a contribution to show how this impasse can be overcome. We are constantly confronted with problems of this kind in our sophisticated industrial society, and it should not be beyond the wit of the House of Commons, which is the very centre of our democracy, to make constructive suggestions to help the nation—I say that advisedly, for it is the nation's wellbeing that is at stake—out of the difficulties in which we find ourselves as we try to protect our vital industries and, at the same time, try to protect our whole economy and all the workers in all industries.
I have spoken consistently in favour of the miners on other occasions, and I speak again today in favour of the miners. At the time of the last dispute in 1972 both before and during the dispute and after the settlement, I spoke harsh words to my own Front Bench because I felt on that occasion that we ought to take the initiative in this House to support the miners and to support the coal industry in the interests of the whole nation.

Mr. Dennis Skinner: What about supporting the miners today?

Mr. Crouch: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will listen to me. He may not agree with everything I say, but I believe that he will have sympathy with some of my remarks.
The miners had a case in 1972. They were granted an inquiry. The Wilberforce recommendations were accepted by the Government, and the miners were given what I regard as a generous award. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said today, it was the biggest award ever granted in the history of their industry.
I believe that the miners have a case again now. I am genuinely concerned when I read in the document sent to me this morning by the National Coal Board that under the new pay scales proposed—I emphasise that—there will still be men working underground earning less than £30 a week. I asked my taxi driver today how much a week he could earn, and he told me that he could just about earn £30 a week if he worked 12 hours a day—and I assume that he meant five days a week. But the men about whom I am concerned are working underground. We cannot fail to appreciate, therefore, that such men, earning less than £30 a week, feel that their case has not been fully recognised.
I read also in the NCB document that as a result of the unsocial hours provision men working at night would have considerable increases under the proposed award, ranging from £8·10 to £9·37. In that area, therefore, it seems that the board's proposals have, so far as they can, taken care of what the board regards as the most important aspect of the miners' claim.
However, it seems that the miners feel that a proper adjustment has not been made in that respect, and I have a suggestion to make in that connection. I do not know how it will be received—perhaps other hon. Members will know better than I can exactly how the miners feel—but I suggest that an adjustment could be made within the total offer. It is, after all, a big offer—£45 million in a year, and nearly equal, as the Secretary of State said, to the Wilberforce award. Perhaps some adjustment could be made within the overall parameters to give more to men working underground in the day time

and less for the night period than is suggested in the proposed award.
This will not, of course, be the last award to the miners, and I make that suggestion in the present interim context when we have a problem to deal with and, as I said earlier, we must try to get over an impasse. I was glad to hear my right hon. Friend say that there is room for flexibility. It is not an inflexible award proposed by the National Coal Board, and I imagine that there could be some readjustment if that were wanted.
Much as I support the miners' case and have sympathy for them, I must recognise that the Government cannot allow the prices and incomes policy to be shattered by their leaning overboard, as it were, in an attempt to help this important sector of industry. To do that would not help all those workers in other industries which the Government—as we all do—have an equal duty to help and sustain.
Do the miners mean to hold the nation to ransom—I use that strong term advisedly—by rejecting the present offer? I do not believe that they do. But I ask the question: do they realise that that is how the public will interpret their approach to the award? I cannot believe that they take that view. No hon. Member on the Labour benches, however strongly he feels as a true miners' representative, has spoken in such terms as even to suggest that he would want to see the nation held to ransom.
Opposition Members who represent miners come to this House not only as miners or ex-miners who know the mining industry, but as true representatives in a democracy. They are prepared to work to the limits of democracy, but within its parameters. That is why, when they speak, the miners and their leaders, of all shades of opinion, pay great attention and have great respect for the way in which they conduct their case in the House. I think that they conduct their case properly, even if they conduct it strongly. That is how they should do it.
I emphasise that I consider the present award to be generous. I do not think that it is the last word. However, no one can get a higher award. The Government have leaned over backwards to ensure that within the limits of their prices and incomes policy, which they acknowledge is restrictive, it is possible


for the miners, who work in a key industry, to get as much as possible. The miners must recognise that there will this time be no Wilberforce Tribunal. They must rely on the House of Commons. We must work within the prices and incomes policy, whether we like it or not.

Mr. Harold Walker: The miners are, but Sir John Stratton is not.

Mr. Crouch: No one who is concerned about the wellbeing of workers in all our industries could be prepared now to speak on behalf of miners in their present claim. In general terms—yes. That is what I have tried to do. In future—yes. That is what I have tried to do. In trying to get out of the present difficulty we must remember that the solution will be of an interim nature. The Government have indicated that this will be an interim solution. The Government have introduced the Coal Industry Act and investment into the industry to put it on a modern footing. The Coal Industry Act is a measure which I supported and will continue to support strongly. It is an Act to sustain the industry and everyone in it.
I want to see the industry have a brighter future than that which has been suggested by the Government Front Bench. I agree with some Opposition Members who constantly remind the Government that electricity should continue to be generated, as far as possible, from coal and that there should not be a switch to oil. It is not now old-fashioned to support the coal argument and to speak against the generation of electricity by oil.
In the present dispute I do not believe that the Government should go beyond the present award. The award, which is on average 13 per cent. across the board, is generous in the context of the Government's prices and incomes policy. I hope that the miners will remember that they must work within that policy. Not to do so and to ask for a tribunal to be established would wreck not only the prices and incomes policy but our last hope of controlling inflation. It would be like a dam buster which would imperil the wage packet of everyone and the housekeeping bill of every housewife.
I believe that the miners have much more sense than to allow themselves to

be led on such a dangerous and tragic path. They have much more sense than to allow themselves to be labelled for ever as the initiators of the nation's decline. It would be a tragedy to have a confrontation. There may be a case for the miners, but there is no case for a fight and a showdown. There is a case for continuing consultation between the NCB, the miners and the Government. Of course, the Government are involved in all major disputes because the Government are operating a prices and incomes policy. The acceptance of the Wilberforce Tribunal's findings showed the Government's concern to recognise the aims of the miners in our society. The Coal Industry Act was and must be a reinforcement of that position.
The new award of £45 million is not inflexible. I hope that when my hon. Friend the Minister for Industry replies he will confirm that point. It could still be adjusted, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said. Surely the time has now come for us to rely on consultation rather than confrontation.

6.25 p.m.

Mr. James Sillars: I should have liked to comment on the point of view expressed by the spokesman for the Liberal Party, the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe) about ballots, but unfortunately he is not present. If we can persuade the hon. Gentleman to stay here after 11 o'clock we may be able to debate the matter further and explain to him the difficulties involved in the rigidity which is inherent in any trade union executive going to a ballot.
Neither the hon. Member for Cornwall, North nor many Government Members understand that as soon as a ballot is taken there disappears freedom of action for an executive. A ballot is, as it were, a referendum which takes powers and responsibilities away from a union executive. That is true, like so much that my hon. Friends and I said during the passage of the Industrial Relations Act. That is one of the reasons for the non-implementation of the Act.
I warn the Conservative Party that if it thinks that it can command public opinion and use it as a nutcracker on the mining communities it has misunderstood the strategy and tactics of an industrial


dispute. Mining communities are more isolated than any other communities. In many parts of the country public opinion is mining opinion. For example, in my constituency the housing convener is a miner. If anyone thinks that the local authority will evict miners from their homes because they have not paid rent during the strike period he is up a gum tree. The quicker the Government understand that fact the better. The sooner they stop talking nonsense about the employment of public opinion the better.
I shall try to explain as patiently as I can why the miners in my constituency have been driven to action. That will be more difficult today, following the proclamation of a state of emergency. It will be construed by the miners as a diversion to cover up the difficult and almost disastrous economic situation into which the Government have put themselves.
I can almost see the cartoonists at work in South Ayrshire. There is much talent in the mining communities. What a wealth of material they have to work on. There will be the Home Secretary, going along to Buckingham Palace. There is the Queen, with pins in her mouth putting up the tucks on the frock for tomorrow. Somebody comes along and says, "I think there is an emergency." Any woman whose daughter is being married tomorrow would agree that an emergency is on.
My people will not be impressed by the charade that took place this afternoon. The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry implied, as others have done, that miners are a greedy lot. That, basically, has been the argument. It is said that they are inspired by greed. It is not greed. The same vindictiveness has appeared in leading articles in the national Press. Those articles have sought to paint the miners as the greedy element in the British working class. We must remember that men who have been working in the pits for years for low wages now earn only £36·79p. That is at the top of the line in the national power loading agreement. Can such men fairly be labelled as the greedy element of the working class? If they were greedy men they would now be on strike. This is the hour of the greatest peril for Britain, in terms of her energy supply. Instead

of going on strike, what have the miners done? They have operated an overtime ban as a warning to the Government. They have given the Government more time for reflection, reconsideration, and further negotiation.
It should be noted that had the miners decided to strike with the same speed as the property owners struck a few hours after phase 3 was introduced—phase 3 having a number of loopholes for property owners—the miners would now be on strike and the country would be in a perilous position.
The Government ask miners to accept wages of below £45 a week for a national power loader on a day shift, but Lord Samuel increased his income and wealth by £1½ million in one day. A working miner would have to live as long as Methuselah to make that sort of money. The miners' case is not greed, but honesty. The miners have seen their ambitions for better living standards thwarted by massive price increases in food and land.
The refusal by the Government to subsidise meat has meant it is rationed to miners, because of the inadequacy of their wages to meet the price of that commodity. By refusing to recognise that a rent increase is a price increase—somehow the Prime Minister cannot understand that—and that it has been imposed by the Government, the Government are refusing to face the bitter resentment that is now abroad in the coalfields.
It is not Lawrence Daly or Joe Gormley who is making the biggest contribution to mining militancy—it is Ted Heath and the Conservative Government. The men can see that the Government, which prides itself on its masculine ability to act toughly, will listen at the end of the day only to people who can act just as toughly as the Government in a confrontation situation. That is the lesson that the working class of this country has learned. Here we are talking about the leaders of the working class—the mining community.
The level of miners' wages has an important bearing on the viability of the coal industry, and Britain will need a viable coal industry. The so-called energy experts inside and outside the Department got it all wrong. The only


people who were right were the National Union of Mineworkers and the miners MPs in the last Parliament. The experts thought that coal was finished. I remember a headline in the Sunday Times business section which said:
Coal still needs the knife.
It got the knife, and a vital lifeline in the country's energy supplies was nearly cut. That shameful exercise was best exemplified by the 1967 White Paper, which is about as relevant as the Dandy, the Beano and The Times—which are just three of the comics circulating at the moment. However, to be fair to the Dandy and the Beano, it is only The Times that is subsidised. The experts have inflicted considerable damage on the energy supply situation in Britain. The Minister should examine his advisers closely and if they are the same as those who advised the Labour Government in 1967 he should get a new lot. They have already been proven as a relegation lot.
The situation in the 1960s depressed miners' earnings in relative terms. It disturbed a continuing pattern in which mining families produced successive generations of miners. It has landed us with a manpower crisis at a time of energy shortage. That manpower crisis can be averted only by a massive increase in wages and that is the only way to re-establish the pattern which provided the only source of mining manpower. That pattern existed on the basis that no-one in his right mind, apart from those born to mining families, would dream of going down the pit unless he was paid £60 before digging a pound of coal.
I hope that the Government will take these facts of life on board, digest them and act sensibly for once by making an increased offer. I once said to the Government, when they were abolishing the three waiting days for manual workers such as miners, that they would live to regret the time when, in the two years after 1970, they declared war on the working people. I said the day would come when they would have to say to the working class, "We are in difficulty, the country is in difficulty, will you help?" That day has arrived. But the Government have to understand that they must pay the price to the working class

if they want us, patriotically, once more to come to the assistance of not only the country but the Government. The chickens have all come home to roost after three and a half years of Tory Government. The Government must face that fact of life.

6.34 p.m.

Mr. Patrick McNair-Wilson: I spent many years in the coal distributive business—

Mr. Harold Walker: Another parasite.

Mr. McNair-Wilson: —and having been involved with energy distribution for a long time one fact emerges clearly to me, not only from the debate but from any intelligent appreciation of the current situation. It is that energy will cost more to everyone in this country. If energy costs more, whether it is oil or any other form of energy, that must ultimately be reflected in the wages paid to the miners.
However, the dispute will not be solved by making the miners a special case. There are unhappy political overtones involved. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State explained earlier, the present agreement has another four months to run. A productivity agreement has still to be finalised, and the fact that the miners and their leaders have decided at this moment to challenge the Government's income policy only leads me to believe that they are out to destroy the Government if possible.
I do not like saying that, but I believe it to be true. The mining industry would have the whip hand in the matter of electricity generation should the dispute drag on until coal stocks at the power stations run out. If that happens the damage to the economy will be disastrous, at a time when we already face considerable problems from external pressures and the problems of oil supply. The miners have chosen this moment to exert the maximum pressure on the Government's incomes policy. If the challenge were to be surrendered to it would endanger the livelihoods of others who have an equal claim to be a special case and whose problems can be exaggerated every bit as much as those of the miners.
The counter-inflation policy is designed to apply to all. Any special treatment that breaches that policy must also destroy its total credibility. Therefore,


there can be no special pleading. If there were, a flood of claims would quickly follow that of the miners, and the policy would be in ruins. Those who would suffer most would be those least able to protect themselves, those without the big battalions and without the whip hand, those who cannot protest in the way which this dispute is demonstrating to us one group can.
Therefore, the deal with the miners must be within the framework of the counter-inflation policy. No exceptions can be allowed. There can be no Wilberforce this time. The hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Varley) said that there is a manpower problem. We are aware of that, of course. One of the problems of a statutory control on prices and incomes is that a number of individuals become locked into a situation which perhaps prevents their getting the going rate for the job. Energy will be more expensive and therefore miners should ultimately see an increase in their salaries. If, with a statutory policy, purely arbitrary decisions are made about increases in pay, some people will be locked in at a lower level, unable ever to get out. If we are to continue with statutory controls over wages we need a national job evaluation to unlock those who find themselves locked in at below their true market value. This is how we shall ultimately solve the problem of the mineworker who does a dangerous and a difficult job. We shall evaluate his job in the same way as we are having to take account of the pressures of the oil sheikhs on our oil supplies, and by so doing enable the mineworker to earn the going rate for producing what is an essential energy content for our industrial needs. But I repeat that in the present dispute there can be no giving in. It has to be decided within the context of phase 3.
It is a tragedy to think that this industry, perhaps the most flexible of all the energy industries at the present time—the one which could take account of our needs far more than nuclear power, or any of the hopes we may have for further oil supplies from the North Sea—should find itself in dispute when the country so desperately needs the products it has to offer.

ROYAL ASSENT

Mr. Speaker: I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified Her Royal Assent to the following Act:
Channel Tunnel (Initial Finance) Act 1973.

COAL SUPPLIES

6.42 p.m.

Mr. Fred Evans: When I listen to speeches of hon. Members and read Press reports I sometimes feel that the miners I was brought up among and still live among are endowed with some kind of chameleon quality and change their image and their shape far too often.
I have heard many tributes paid to the mining industry as being one of the most responsible and strike-free industries in this country, and historically that is true. But suddenly these men become translated into the greedy workers, the blackmailers of society, those who victimise the less able in our society. Inside and outside the House I have heard people become almost crassly sentimental when they talk of the dangers that miners undergo, the arduous conditions in which they work and the complete lack of hesitation when they are called, even at the possible sacrifice of their lives, to go to the aid of their mates. Suddenly all these worth while, almost heroic qualities are switched round and they become mini-men who are willing to take anybody by the arm and twist it until it is falling off.
In my constituency I have more pits still open, although not the biggest labour force, than elsewhere in the country. I visit the pits regularly, and as recently as last September—it would have done hon. Members' hearts good and improved their bodies as it did mine—spent a day at a working face in eight different collieries. I talked to the men in the environment of their job. Not being a stranger to the industry, apart from the physical punishment, I enjoyed being underground once again.
Let there be no misconception on the benches opposite. If hon. Members think that there is any lack of solidarity they are labouring under a fallacy. I hope


that I can talk for the whole of the South Wales coalfields. The men I worked with are 100 per cent. solid behind their lodges and leaders. Any other construction that is put on it, as by the hon. Member for Cannock (Mr. Cormack), who hinted that there were divided voices, can be forgotten. There was one significant difference about the action being taken now. Surface workers are involved in this one, as are the British Association of Colliery Managers, the National Association of Colliery Overmen, Deputies and Shot-firers, and the Colliery Office Staffs Association. This kind of solidarity will not be broken. Managers may go underground in order to carry out a general supervisory walk round, but they will not do any job that any other underground worker normally would be doing. The same goes for any member of NACODS.
This morning's Guardian carries a significant little article headed "A bitter seam". Perhaps I might quote one or two brief extracts because I can assure the Government that the article represents the true feelings of the South Wales miners. The article was written by a woman journalist named Ann Clwyd. She writes:
A ballot of the 700 men at the Coed Ely colliery two weeks ago was 100 per cent. in favour of the overtime ban.
She reports one of the individual workmen as saying:
Even if it was a vote for a strike I think it would definitely carry this time.
Another worker is reported as saying:
Our wages are low compared with other jobs. I get £36 as a face worker—after stoppages it's £29. When you're married with three kids it's not a lot of money, is it?
Miss Clwyd quotes case after case, giving returns of their pay and what they would probably get under the implementation of the Government's proposals. She goes on:
The miners strongly disagree with the National Coal Board's claim that its offer is worth a 16½ per cent. increase.
According to one surface worker,
It's not the wage they say we're having. I've been offered a rise of £2.25. It's just not good enough.
Miss Clwyd writes of him:
He gets around £30 take-home pay, including overtime, but works as a part-time fireman to make ends meet.

As my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Sillars) reminded us, it is in the nature of mining communities to demonstrate a solidarity which will not be broken. The women fully support this attitude, and they are a powerful influence in seeing that when their men fight for justice they go in with a reasonable chance of winning.
The article went on:
In the village a miner's wife, Mrs. Valerie Baker, was working as a petrol-pump attendant. 'I've got four children and we couldn't manage without my job. We don't smoke or drink but we still find it hard. If you work in a factory you can have proper breaks. My husband has to eat his sandwiches in the dust down under. I don't think he's paid what he's worth.'
The flight from the mining industry which has been mentioned so often today is seen by the miners in a responsible manner which has not even been hinted at by Government supporters. The miners regard themselves as responsible people. There is no union in the country that has done more thinking about the general energy situation than the NUM—not now, but five years ago and even 10 years ago. The contribution of the NUM's thinking in the last five years has been magnificent. It was the miners who pressed the Labour Government for an integrated fuel and energy policy. It is the miners who are pressing this Government. It is the miners who care for the future of their industry and of their country.
At the same time, it is the miners who are labelled as blackmailers and as people who are dishonourably using their own rules. It is written into their rules that they have to hold a ballot before they strike. However, they do not have to hold a ballot before they ban overtime. Because they have begun an overtime ban, it is looked upon as an act of treachery to the country. In other words, it can be an act of treachery to operate inside the rules. On the other hand, anyone operating as an asset stripper or property speculator is regarded as a slick individual who is using the situation in an intelligent manner. If anyone thinks that the native intelligence that most miners have will swallow that kind of argument, he can think again.
In caring for their industry the miners know that if they do not stop the flight of manpower from the industry it is only a


matter of time before the industry dies. It has an ageing labour force and it is failing to recruit labour. If an overtime ban does not result in floods and geological movements which close the pits, it will be the men who close them because there will be no manpower.
The Government must think carefully about the situation. If they care about our country's future the Government must find a way out. They must do justice to the miners. In my reading of the energy situation, we shall not be able to do without coal for very many years into the future. It is our very precious bridge over the energy gap which will hit other countries. We must exploit it properly. We shall not do it without according elementary justice to the miners.

Mr. Cormack: Does not the hon. Gentleman think that an overtime ban may itself accelerate the drift from the industry and that during an industrial dispute the drift of 600 or 700 a week may grow to 1,000?

Mr. Evans: That is supposition. What is certain is that an overtime ban may close a number of pits. I have in mind a typical colliery in my own constituency from which 2 million gallons of water are pumped every day. Given a week or a fortnight without something being done that colliery may not reopen.
The miners are saying "We do not want to do this. It is our industry. But we know that unless we achieve conditions which will bring recruitment into the industry, it will die in any event. Therefore, we believe that we are doing the right thing by our country in taking strong action when we talk in terms of an overtime ban." If we cannot solve the present difficulty we shall find ourselves in dire trouble.
What will hit the miners more than anything else is the indecent haste in bringing forward emergency powers. I can assure the Government that their action will be interpreted by the miners as an attempt to wield the big stick. What is more, if and when the emergency powers are invoked they may prove to be of assistance in terms of transport, but soldiers will not be willing to go down 1,500 ft. below ground. As someone said earlier today, coal cannot be

dug with bayonets. Miners are essential if we want to win coal.
Contrary to popular opinion, anyone who knows the industry knows that every man in it is a superb craftsman. If their crafts are not preserved and passed on, the industry will die whether it be because of an overtime ban, a strike or the flight of manpower from it.
That is the challenge which the Government have to answer. If we land ourselves in an energy crisis, theirs will be the blame.

6.55 p.m.

Mr. David Marquand: Unlike almost all my hon. Friends who have spoken in the debate with the authority of having worked in the coal mining industry, I have never worked in it. I merely represent a mining constituency. However, I have learnt a great deal from representing that constituency.
One thing I have learnt, and perhaps the most important in the context of the debate, is that one cannot hope to bully the miners. To try to do so would be counter-productive. In many of the speeches from the Government benches there was a tendency to think that in some way one could bully the miners back to normal working. If that is the thought in the Government's mind, we are heading for an ugly social crisis. Therefore, I hope that the Government think again.
We have all talked about the energy crisis which we face in the coming weeks and months, but the subject is also being debated in the shadow of a much more serious, long-term energy crisis. What has happened to our economy in the past few weeks as a result of the activities of the Arab oil producers is merely a foretaste of what will happen in any case in 10, 15 or 20 years' time. It is now fairly well accepted, as a consensus, by those who know something of the technicalities of the oil industry, that oil production will be running down by the early 1980s, and that we shall be in severe energy troubles by the end of that decade.
An energy crisis is not something which has been suddenly dreamed up by NUM propagandists. It is a fact. That is why the Government carried out the turn-round of policy which the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry boasted about at the start of the debate. It was


not because the Government have suddenly fallen in love with the miners, or the mining industry, but because they realised that mining would be essential to the country's economy by the end of the century.
As has been repeatedly pointed out in the debate, there cannot be a mining industry unless there are miners to work in it. At present, miners are leaving the industry at an accelerating rate. I have today looked at the figures for the pits in my constituency. It would take too long to give all the figures, but in three months between July and October, 254 men left the industry in the pits in my constituency. The north Nottingham area, which is supposed to be an expanding coal production area and one of the bright spots of the coal industry, had 403 fewer men on its books in October than it had in July. That is the fact of the situation.
Perhaps I can relate an anecdote to the House, because we often talk in abstractions and forget about individual people. The other day I visited a constituent in his home to talk about a personal problem. He happens to be a miner. His wife, his brother and his brother's wife were also there. I arrived in the middle of a conversation amongst the four of them. The two wives had been saying to their husbands: "Look, when are you going to wake up to the facts of life and get a decent job outside coal mining?" My constituent told me: "I would go to another job if I was 10 years younger. I am too old to go. I am 48. I cannot leave now. I am trapped. If I were 38 I would leave. But if I were 28 I would never have gone into the pits." He added, "In my pit we are like Dad's Army. In my team there is one man under 40, one man over 60, and the rest are in the same age group as myself." It is lunacy to think that the industry can survive in this situation.
We can all understand the imperatives of the counter-inflation policy, but the imperatives of maintaining the one indigenous energy resource which can fill the gap we face in the near future are even greater. I urge the Minister to accept the wise and statesmanlike suggestion of my hon. Friend the Member for Morpeth (Mr. George Grant). For God's sake, before it is too late, before attitudes harden, before a deadlock has

been created, set up an immediate, high-level inquiry into the reasons for wastage in the mining industry, and act on that inquiry in the very near future.

7.0 p.m.

Mr. Alex Eadie: I have very little time to reply on behalf of my hon. Friends to the debate, which has been unsatisfactory in many ways. An urgent need for the House to have a full-scale debate on energy has emerged. We need it so that we may discuss the energy crisis that confronts the British people and may very well confront the world. It would be monstrously irresponsible of the Government not to give an assurance that we shall have such a debate.
The Minister for Industry, who is to reply for the Government, has a heavy responsibility. Nothing has emerged from the debate so far to suggest that the Government have any idea of the kind of situation which we are entering. If the congratulations to the hon. Member for Cannock (Mr. Cormack), who managed to initiate the debate, are to be meaningful, and if the debate is to be constructive, the Government have a duty to tell Parliament and the nation what they propose to do about the present serious situation.
The hon. Gentleman has done the House a service in bringing the issue of coal and energy before us, but I do not wish to comment too much on his speech. Some of my hon. Friends have said that he tried to ride about four horses at the same time. I do not think that many miners in the hon. Gentleman's constituency will congratulate him on his speech. We do not mind being lectured about history, but miners and their representatives object to a Member of Parliament trying to re-write history. To say that the miners were responsible for phase 1, phase 2 and phase 3 of the incomes policy is a complete distortion of the facts and of political reality.
It is nothing new for miners to be given instructions in democracy by certain people outside their own organisations. We are sometimes told that when miners engage in conflict it is not because they have a grouse or a case but because they have become victims of the predatory Left or other organisations. If the Secretary of State and the Minister believe that the present problem of the miners' overtime ban has been dreamt up by the


predatory Left or some other organisation, they are making the biggest mistake they have ever made.
My hon. Friends and I have been saying that the miners, or their leaders and representatives, exercised democracy in having a ballot or reflection of the opinion of members. There is nothing undemocratic about the process that is gone through. The miners' accredited representatives, members of the national executive, decide on resolutions passed by accredited annual conferences which give them the mandates they should follow for the rest of their elective year. They write to every branch in Britain, saying "We are to have an overtime ban. Are you in favour or against it?" Then, the membership having been duly notified, members go to the pit union branch meetings where the issue is discussed, and decide what to do. The branch secretary reports to national headquarters the decision of the branch, made when members vote at the branch meetings. Our information, when we met the miners' leaders last night, was that the decision was unanimous among the members of every union branch in Britain. The Government would be foolish if they ignored that.
The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry said that he was responsible for the introduction of the Coal Industry Act. He said that the Government had greatly improved the prospects and the lot of the miners by the implementation of Wilberforce. I do not speak entirely with the authority of the national executive of the NUM, but my guess is that it would accept tomorrow if the right hon. Gentleman instructed his hon. Friend who is to conclude the debate to say that the Government are prepared to settle on the kind of payments commensurate with the Wilberforce settlement. [Interruption.] I bet it would.
Some Conservative Members have said tonight that at the time of Wilberforce the miners received great sympathy from the nation because they had a case, and that the nation welcomed Wilberforce because it believe that the settlement was fair and equitable to the miners and their community. If Conservative Members are saying now that they will agree to a Wilberforce settlement, the crisis about which we have been told will be averted.
The right hon. Gentleman talked about Wilberforce. I was in a better position than he was then, because I was a member of the national executive of the NUM. I happened to be at Downing Street at a meeting from about 9 p.m. until 1 a.m., when the Prime Minister realised that the nation was confronted with a crisis and the Government settled on the basis of Wilberforce. When the right hon. Gentleman says that he was responsible for the Coal Industry Act, we are entitled to reply that the Bill came after Wilberforce, because the Government realised the rôle that coal had to play.
We believe that during the strike another powerful factor emerged. The Prime Minister and the Government are very fond of talking about open government, but we have still not received from them information about what the Rothschild "think tank" said about the coal mining industry. The right hon. Gentleman will remember that during the last miner's strike the Rothschild "think tank" gave the Cabinet a jolt about the future of the coal industry. That was revealed by the remarkable journalist, Chapman Pincher, in the Daily Express, under a headline which suggested that "King Coal" had to take its place in our future. The right hon. Gentleman has a responsibility to the miners and the nation to reveal what was contained in the "think tank" report about the future of the coal mining industry.
I hope that the miners will not be blamed for the state of emergency which, I understand from the Leader of the House, we are to debate on Thursday. If the Government blame the miners for the emergency, petrol rationing or power cuts a feeling of tremendous bitterness will develop in the industry from which we shall never recover.
I hope that the Government will investigate the question of obtaining oil from coal. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, in the debate on 30th October, spoke of this possibility. As miners, we do not want to crawl to prosperity on the backs of Arab or Israeli workers. We have indigenous resources and we should use them.
When the Minster for Industry replies I hope that he will answer these simple questions: what do the Government intend to do about stopping the wastage


of 700 men per week from the mining industry? Will he announce an inquiry into the energy crisis and try to get a settlement so that our people will not have to suffer inconvenience now or in the future?

7.13 p.m.

The Minister for Industry (Mr. Tom Boardman): The House is grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock (Mr. Cormack) for introducing the debate and for the contributions which have been made from both sides of the House by hon. Members who have a considerable knowledge of the industry and of the people who work in it. Although on some matters I find myself in disagreement with Opposition Members, they have expressed sentiments which are shared by Conservative Members as to the contribution made by miners to the economy and the conditions under which miners work and the risks they run.
That this debate has become necessary is a matter of personal sadness for me. We have made considerable progress during the last 18 months in restoring the industry to a position from which it can make a major contribution to our energy problems and give secure employment to those engaged in it. The course that has been taken not only could have a disastrous effect upon the coal industry but could do grave damage to industry and employment in the United Kingdom and to the comfort and way of life of many people who may suffer from shortages of fuel and energy.
In that connection, I should perhaps tell the House that tomorrow we shall be making regulations, with effect from tomorrow night, to control the use of display lighting and space heating. The effect of the regulations will be to control the use of electricity for advertising or display or for lighting any open-air arena, and to control the use of electricity for the space heating of offices, shops, restaurants and places of entertainment. Premises occupied by doctors, dentists and certain other categories will be exempt. At the same time, instructions are being sent to Government Departments on the economy measures that they should put into effect without delay. Similar advice is being sent to nationalised industries and local and other authorities.
I hope that everyone will take whatever means possible to reduce fuel consumption. I make this appeal to the country as a whole. We could be facing a shortage of fuel and energy which would have a cripping effect upon our way of life and our industry. It is very much in the interests of everyone to conserve all the fuel they can at this time.
I do not want to go back to the record of the past, but, having heard many speeches from Opposition Members, I must say that the record of the Labour Government does not entitle them to criticise what has happened since we have had a Conservative Government. The position was summed up very well by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins), who admitted that the Labour Government's rundown of coal had
gravely damaged Britain's overall industrial strength and long-run international competitiveness.
In the last 18 months we have secured that the two sides of the industry get together with the Government. There was the 20-point plan which spelt out the contributions made by the National Coal Board, the unions and the Government to set sights and targets for the future to provide a secure supply, stability, security of jobs and better terms. We discussed the rôle of our indigenous fuel and its virtue as a secure source of supply. The unions pointed out the vulnerability of other sources of supply—which was argued forcibly by hon. Gentlemen—and contrasted it with the security of supply of indigenous fuel.
We followed that discussion on the 20-point plan with the Coal Industry Act, which provided for £1,100 million of the taxpayers' money to be put into the industry, part of which was to be used to write off past deficits. I remind the House of the benefits—which both sides believed to be due—that the Act brought to the miners in the form of improved pensions. Pensions were doubled. [Interruption.] Hon. Members may have said that they wanted more, but I remind the Opposition Members that the Labour Government left pensions at the previous low level. The Conservatives have doubled the pension, and that is a factor which those who are engaged in the mining industry should take into account


when looking at the overall conditions of their employment.
We also revised the redundant miners' payments scheme. This provided that miners between the age of 35 and 55 who were made redundant should receive a substantial lump sum payment. We put an end to the system whereby after he had been in receipt of redundancy pay for three years a miner went on to social security benefits. We introduced provisions for continuing the pension until he reached retirement age. We also brought in social benefits at a cost of £100 million of the taxpayers' money and provided better transfer provisions, and so on. These matters should not be disregarded when we consider the mining industry as a whole.
We discussed our long-range thinking with the industry, with the National Coal Board and with the union. The National Coal Board introduced its long-term plan, it produced a blue-print mapping out the future of the industry. It dealt with new seam expansion of pits, new pits to be sunk, and similar matters which were to be undertaken. If we can get over this present trouble, those matters can still be undertaken in order to provide the industry with a secure future and the country with the indigenous resources that it needs.
We discussed the energy plan put forward by the National Union of Mineworkers. It was a document with which in many ways we agreed. It contained much which we could incorporate in our thinking and some matters which we could not accept. Against this background, I view the present situation with some regret.
Hon. Members on both sides of the House have referred to the run down in manpower. One criticism made by Labour Members is that the run down rate is quite unacceptable since it indicates that wages are too low and are insufficient to maintain the industry. I wish to remind the House that the real measure of run down must be looked at against what has happened in previous years. These matters were under negotiation when the union put in its wage demand and sought to couple with it an implied threat of industrial action. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Indeed, the record is

there for all to see. The first occasion on which the weekly voluntary wastage figure exceeded 600 was the week after the union made its announcement about its demand with the underlying sentiment "This must be met, or else!"
Let me remind the House of past rundown figures. In 1968 the figure was 43,000; in 1969 46,000; in 1970, 23,000; and in the last three years the figure of rundown reduced to 9,000, 12,000 and then to 10,000. This was the contrast between the sort of security which we were building up in the industry in providing mineworkers with a secure base and the rapid contraction which was undermining the morale of the industry as a legacy of the past.
In saying this, I am not confining myself just to the 1964 period. I believe that prior to 1964 the mining industry did not have all the support which most hon. Members believe that it should have had.
The right hon. Member for Barnsley (Mr. Mason) referred to a particular case of one miner who did no overtime, who worked at an unskilled job, who had a family, and so on. I do not wish to bandy figures with the right hon. Gentleman—except perhaps to say this. In the six years of Labour Government the pay of the surface worker rose by a total of £7 a week. In the three and a half years in which the Conservative Party has been in power the wages of that same worker have risen by £16 per week. The wage of the face worker during the six years of Labour rule rose by £4 a week. In the three and a half years of Conservative rule his wage rose by £13 a week and his standard of living in that period has improved year by year.
The right hon. Gentleman also raised one matter which was answered by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and also by my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch). My right hon. Friend said that if the unions wished to re-jig the offer—if they wished to attribute more of the total packet available to them to allow more to go to the lower-paid and less to some other section of workers; for example, more to the surface worker and less to the face worker, or whichever way they wished—this was something which they could negotiate with the


board. This is part of the flexibility built into the code. What must be clear beyond peradventure is that we cannot, and will not, break the code and destroy our fight against inflation—a fight which is so vital to the protection of the standard of living of pensioners, those on fixed incomes, those with low incomes and the like.
The miners are said to be a special case. I believe that the miners are a special case, and I appreciate the special conditions under which they work, the risks they run and the hours they work. These are problems which arise in mining and in other industries, and they are provided for within the code. The provisions of the code enable people with special cases to take advantage of the code. The provisions in respect of unsocial hours—a matter which for years had never been met—is now available to them under the code.
I conclude by saying that Conservatives have no hostility to the miners. Quite the reverse. We respect them as individuals. Those who have seen them at work respect them and recognise the hazards and dangers of their work, but neither they nor any other group—

It being three hours after the commencement of the proceedings, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER interrupted the proceedings pursuant to Standing Order No. 9 (Adournment on specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration): and the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed without Question put.

Orders of the Day — CINEMATOGRAPH AND INDECENT DISPLAYS BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

7.27 p.m.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Robert Carr): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The Bill deals with two related subjects. It remedies some anomalies in our system of controlling the showing of films and strengthens the safeguards against the display and unsolicited distribution of objectionable matter.
I welcome the opportunity to bring these proposals before the House because I believe that they deal with a subject which is of great public concern. They go to one aspect of the quality of life in our community and they raise issues of considerable importance. They illustrate the balance which must be struck between the two traditional responsibilities of the Home Secretary—namely, on the one hand the preservation of the liberty of the individual and, on the other, the maintenance of public order.
These proposals are likely to be attacked by some as an interference with freedom of expression and an unjustifiable extension of censorship. They are likely to be attacked by others as not going far enough to deal with current trends in our society. To be attacked from both sides is not an unusual position for any Home Secretary to find himself in, but it can often be of some reassurance to him to feel that he has struck about the right balance between these two conflicting demands of freedom on the one side and a reasonable degree of public order on the other.
Discussion of this subject often tends to be influenced more by passion than by reason, and there is some danger of important distinctions being overlooked.
The main purpose of the Bill is to deal with an objectionable public nuisance. Hon. Members on both sides of the House will be familiar with complaints from their constituents about the character of much public advertising, the


covers of books and magazines, and other forms of articles and merchandise publicly displayed, and also about things that come through letter boxes uninvited. I believe that it was right that the more excessive inhibitions of the Victorian age should be discarded and a greater frankness introduced into the public discussion of many subjects, the very mention of which not so long ago would have been frowned upon. But in my view this frankness has been exploited for commercial ends; it has been used not to broaden freedom but to exploit for commercial gain.
There has been a commercial competition to break down the ordinary reticences and to indulge with impunity in increasingly outrageous displays. At least, the overwhelming majority of people are outraged. This trend has been reinforced by some no doubt small but extreme radical elements whose avowed end is to break up society by uprooting all standards in this sphere. These trends are defended in the name of freedom. They are not an exercise of freedom but a negation of it.
We recognise the need to control material development in various ways to prevent the environment being polluted—I refer to buildings, advertisements, and so forth—but this is so not only in the physical but in the aesthetic sense. Exactly the same principle justifies the imposition of a standard of restraint on material which is publicly displayed.
In this, as in some other areas, the rôle of the criminal law is not to make a sharp distinction between right and wrong. Ideally, this is an area where the community should set standards of restraint which are generally observed, but experience has shown that the machinery of social restraint is breaking down in this area, and the criminal law must therefore step in to serve as a buttress to other standards and as a guide to the aims that society should set itself.
I realise that this may be attacked as an extension of censorship, but I stress to everybody that the Bill is not concerned with and has nothing to do with censorship. In this area there is a danger of allowing slogans to become a substitute for thought.
Censorship can take countless forms. In its strict sense, however, it is the power of the Government to suppress various forms of expression. No such power is introduced by the Bill in any way at all.
This whole issue is a good deal more complex than is often recognised. The call for an overall tightening up of the laws dealing with pornography is just as over-simplified as is the campaign for their total repeal. Our laws recognise that the circumstances of the various media differ substantially. Some media are aimed at the public at large, some are specially aimed at the home, some have special attractions for children, and the editorial control varies according to the organisation of the different media.
These differences are reflected in the existence of two standards in our law—obscenity and indecency.
Obscenity is a narrow standard, a long stop, which prohibits only material which is likely to cause positive harm, and this is prohibited in all circumstances, including private transactions. Indecency, on the other hand, is a broader standard which applies to material which may shock or disgust. Because this standard covers so much more, its use in the criminal law is confined broadly to the public situation as opposed to the private transaction.

Mr. Hugh Jenkins: Before leaving that point, will the right hon. Gentleman clarify what he said about the Bill's not introducing censorship? Clause 8 makes it an offence to produce indecent words.

Mr. Carr: For public display. It is not sufficient simply to deal with visual display. Certainly we are concerned with visual display, and I am not aware of audible display which has hitherto caused trouble. But when dealing with legislation we should cope with the possibility of audible display as well as visual display. I think that is all that the clause does, but I believe that it should do it. It is not introducing censorship into what can be said or done. It is merely saying that display includes the magnification, the uttering by sound in a public place, of material which, if displayed visually, would also be indecent. It is right to provide for that as well as for visual display.
We are on Second Reading, and no doubt that and many other matters can be argued in Committee. When my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State concludes the debate he will no doubt be able to reply to the hon. Gentleman on this and any other points that may raised. When drafting the Bill we believed that it was not sufficient merely to cover visual display, though I fully accept that visual display is the main, if not the only, cause of worry at the moment.
Every aspect of this subject has been extensively discussed in recent years. In particular, much work has been done voluntarily leading to the production of various reports. As Home Secretary, of all the matters on which I have to speak the easiest to be reported upon is any utterance on this subject. Therefore, this is clearly a popular subject, whatever else it is.
A working party, under the auspices of a conference convened by the Arts Council some years ago, while recommending widespread repeals, on the one hand, nevertheless believed, on the other, that we should retain safeguards for the young and against public display.
More recently, the noble Earl, Lord Longford, and his study group produced an interesting examination of the whole of this subject with a variety of recommendations for substantial changes in the law which their authors hoped would serve to cut back significantly the availability of pornography in every way.
In addition, a sub-committee of the Society of Conservative Lawyers, under the chairmanship of my hon. and learned Friend, before he became Solicitor-General, produced a rather shorter report, which also recommended, with the same end in view, changes in the law concerning both obscenity and indecent display. Then, last Session, my hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, South-West (Sir Gilbert Longden) introduced a Private Member's Bill, the aim of which was similar to the proposals contained in this Bill. I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend and to my hon. Friend for their contributions to the development of our ideas and of opinion generally on this subject.
All these discussions demonstrated the great difficulties of making satisfactory

improvements in the general provisions which control the various media. However, they show a pretty wide general consensus for the view that, whatever people should be able to choose to read or see in private, there ought to be more effective control over what is thrust on the public when they have no choice in the matter. It is accordingly this aspect with which the main provisions of the Bill deal.
I should emphasise that the fact that the Bill does not deal with the substantive provisions in the obscenity law, which it leaves entirely untouched, is not to be taken as implying any relaxation in those provisions any more than any tightening up.
The number of prosecutions for obscenity under the present law continues to show a small but steady increase, and, more important, the seizures and destruction of obscene material by the police have been on a scale which appears now to be limiting the availability of this material. I certainly do not contemplate any relaxation in these endeavours, and it would not be right for there to be no control whatsoever on material that circulates even in private,
However that may be—there will be differing views—I must emphasise again that the Bill does not touch that aspect of the problem. But I believe that whatever people choose to see or read in relative privacy a much stricter standard should apply to what is publicly displayed. The analogy with street loitering is a close one. I believe that some of us too easily forget the appearance of many of our metropolitan streets before the passing of the Street Offences Act in 1959.
That Act played an effective part in making it possible once again for ordinary people and their families to go about without the affront and embarrassment of the sight of women loitering for prostitution. I believe that the time has come to make a similar clearance in our streets and public places of the offensive advertising and other displays which have become commonplace in recent years, and are spreading.
I emphasise that the object of the Bill is to remove indecent material from public view. The Bill does not remove it from


circulation. Indeed, the relevant provisions in the Bill do not apply to places where people deliberately pay for the entertainment in question. What the Bill does is to remove this material from the public gaze, and I believe that there is wide support for that objective among people of varying views about the basic question of the law of obscenity.
Perhaps the single most important feature of the Bill is the meaning of "indecent." It will be seen that the Bill contains no definition of that word. I assure the House that this is a matter to which I gave a great deal of thought, and I shall be surprised if it is not a matter to which the Committee returns when we discuss the Bill at that more detailed stage. I have, however, been interested to note that most—not all, of course—of the comment that has been made so far has supported this omission, on the ground that any definition is likely only to lead to refinements of legal argument. It was precisely for that reason that no such definition was included.
I do not think that this is likely to lead to any difficulty in practice. The legal position is that the meaning of "indecent" in a statute has to be deduced from its context. In this context the word has featured in statutes for well over a century, and the courts do not appear to have found any difficulty, in practice, in interpreting it. Its primary sense is of sexual impropriety in the various forms that that may take. It is, however, clear that the sense of the word goes wider than that and covers material which outrages or affronts conventions. It would, therefore, cover, for example, offensive pictures of the deliberate infliction of torture.
I have seen it argued that the interpretation of this word, if undefined, is likely to vary from district to district, and that it is wrong to leave it to the decision of individual magistrates, but I do not believe that those are valid criticisms. Obviously, the meaning of a term such as "indecency" changes over long periods, and it is clear to many of us from our own experiences that there are variations in different areas. What is wrong with that? There are individual parts of the country where stricter standards of restraint apply than elsewhere—stricter perhaps than here in the metropolis—and I see nothing wrong in a provision which may be so interpreted that it enforces a

greater degree of restraint where this is in line with the standards of the local community. I do not see merit in trying to seek a centralised, uniform, universal definition which does not take account of local variations in opinion and feeling.
I believe that the public themselves have a considerable rôle to play in the operation of legislation of this kind, by having the chance to make known to the enforcement authorities what it is that they find objectionable when publicly displayed. It is understandable that the ineffectiveness of the existing law may have deterred complaints of that kind from being made to the police, but when the Bill has been passed that excuse will no longer be available. I have no doubt that the task of the police and the courts in making these provisions effective will be greatly helped if individual members of the public make known to the police the kind of material the display of which they find offensive.

Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies: Is my right hon. Friend likely to give any guidelines to the Metropolitan Police about what might be regarded as offensive material? I ask that because of what he said about these provisions applying to matters not only of a sexual nature but of a sadistic nature.

Mr. Carr: I shall consider what my hon. Friend has said. My instinct—and I believe that it is correct—is not to give guidance to the police. There is some doubt about the extent to which Home Secretaries should give guidance to the police. I believe that once the law is brought up to date and made adequate it will soon become apparent to the police, from the complaints made to them not by the Home Secretary but by ordinary people—and, for that matter, by Members of Parliament passing on views which they receive from their constituents—what lines to pursue. I do not want to be dogmatic, but I rather shy away from the thought of giving such guidance to the police.
I now turn from the general principles to the specific provisions of the Bill. My hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State will deal with some of these in more detail at the end of the debate. There are, however, several matters which I should particularly like to draw to the attention of the House now.
Part I of the Bill resolves some anomalies which have emerged in our system of film censorship—and they really are anomalies. This system subjects films that are shown in the commercial public cinema to the control of the local licensing authorities, but other exhibitions are exempt from that control, just as they are from the operation of the Obscene Publications Acts unless they are given in a private dwelling-house to which the public are not admitted. It seems extraordinary that something that can be done in private in our own sitting rooms is subject to the law of obscenity, yet something that is done in a film club is not. I cannot believe that that is not an anomaly and that it should be allowed to continue.
Equally, we believe that those films shown under the label "clubs", for commercial gain, should not be exempt as they are now. The only way of dealing with them is through provisions in the old common law, which most people believe are so defective that the prosecution would rightly be open to criticism if it tried to resort to them.
Part I seeks to remedy the situation by ensuring that exhibitions which are now exempt shall in future be subject either to the control of the local licensing authorities or to the provisions of the Obscene Publications Acts.
The main category that will be brought within the scope of the licensing authorities will be exhibitions promoted for private gain, many of which are already virtually indistinguishable from public performances. In addition, film society exhibitions for which a charge is made and which it is desired to advertise will, in future, if the Bill is passed in its present form, be brought within the licensing authorities' control.
I know that that latter provision is causing anxiety to the film society movement. The provision is, however, intended as a long-stop to prevent the exploitation of controversial films by an irresponsible minority. The procedure has been kept as simple as possible. I stress that within the Bill as drafted licensing authorities have been given power to exempt organisations from its requirements, and, secondly, that the Bill provides a right of appeal.
Part II contains the main provisions concerning public indecent display. The principal offence is created by Clause 6. "Public place" is defined as any place to which the public have access, whether on payment or otherwise, subject to certain exceptions. The certain exceptions are extremely important. One of these exceptions comprises places to which admission is effected only on payment when the payment relates to the very material about which complaint may be made. That is to say, the exclusion does not apply to a railway platform but it does apply to a cinema or theatre. When one pays to visit a cinema or theatre one must be presumed to be taking a choice and not to have something thrust down one's throat, whether or not one likes it. I have already explained the principle which underlines this, and I believe that it is right. Other exceptions are public art galleries and museums, and anything done in the course of broadcasting.

Mr. Robert Cooke: Is my right hon. Friend certain that all public art galleries are safely excluded? He mentioned the Crown and the local authority, and any body established for charitable purposes. Is my right hon. Friend certain that that definition covers all reputable musuems and art galleries? Will he also address himself to Clause 7? Does that clause mean that what the butler saw is now illegal?

Mr. Carr: On the first part of my hon. Friend's question, I accept that this a difficult matter. I think that he would be probably right on the museums and galleries aspect. We certainly found this a difficult matter of drafting. It is probably a particular area in which good discussion and views will be extremely valuable in Committee. I think that we have got it right on balance. But I confess readily to my hon. Friend that it is not altogether playing it safe. Therefore, good discussion would be welcomed. I promise the House that we shall not take up a rigid view. If we hear good arguments for changes, we shall not be stiff-necked about listening to them.
As to Clause 7, and what the butler saw, yes, it does mean that it is illegal, if what the butler saw was indecent. This was a difficult matter to decide, too, and I suppose that it is really of its own kind in the Bill. The point that I had


in mind in including it is that although one has to pay to see what the butler saw, it is very different, as we all recognise, from paying to go to the cinema or the theatre. These machines are placed in arcades. I have particularly in mind that children are particularly prone to visit such arcades. Therefore, in view of some of the examples that have been brought to our attention of what one can see in these peep-show machines, I felt it right to include this. Clause 7 is of its own kind and is, in a sense, an exception to the rest of the Bill. Here again, we shall have interesting arguments in Committee, although I am not sure whether the rules of order permit us to have any visual examination of what I have in mind.

Mr. Phillip Whitehead: The right hon. Gentleman has mentioned broadcasting. Will that category of exceptions include closed-circuit television and film shows on cable television?

Mr. Carr: I should be able to tell the hon. Gentleman the answer to that. On the whole, honesty pays in the House, and I confess to him that suddenly, off the cuff, I am not quite sure of the answer. I remember discussing this matter a good many weeks ago with my advisers. I had better ask my hon. Friend to deal with that point when he concludes the debate. I apologise to the hon. Gentleman and to the House for being unable to answer the question straight away.
Broadcasting is already subject to a separate system of control. Both the British Broadcasting Corporation and the Independent Broadcasting Authority already have the obligation to prevent broadcasts which offend against good taste and decency. Therefore, it would not be right to bring them directly within the Bill. But the House may like to know that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications has received assurances from the chairmen of both broadcasting authorities that they will interpret their responsibilities in the spirit of the legislation now being introduced, subject to its being passed.
Thanks to the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Robert Cooke). I have said all that is needed to say about Clause 7 at present.
I draw attention to the fact that Clause 8 ensures that a ban on visual indecencies shall not be circumvented by resort to the use of offensive records and the like. This matter has already been raised by the hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Hugh Jenkins) in an intervention.
Clause 9 closes another loophole by making it an offence to advertise articles which are for sale or hire in public in terms which are not indecent in themselves but clearly suggest the indecency of the article advertised. This is also an area about which we shall need careful discussion in Committee.
Clause 10 deals with the nuisance of unsolicited circulars. Probably most of us, as Members of Parliament, would agree that this is the thing that has troubled many of our constituents more than anything else. The clause replaces Section 4 of the Unsolicited Goods and Services Act 1971, the provisions of which have been found to be defective in a number of ways. The clause will apply not only to indecent matter but also to advertising which suggests that what is being advertised is indecent. I believe that this will be welcomed by many people. The remaining clauses deal with penalties, enforcement and interpretation.
The provisions in Part II replace a group of provisions in the existing law which date from the nineteenth century. It would be wrong for hon. Members to think that we are introducing wholly new concepts into our law. Some of them are new, but most of the law covering this subject at present dates from the nineteenth century. Those provisions which were originally introduced to deal with the same mischief as the subject of the Bill but have proved ineffective for a number of reasons have been replaced. The scope of those old provisions has been shown to be uncertain. They were drafted with reference to circumstances very different from those of today. The penalties were often derisory, and they left a number of serious loopholes. Part II attempts to rationalise and strengthen those old provisions in order to deal with the mischief which I believe constitutes a grave public nuisance, which ought to be drastically restrained.
I repeat that the object of the Bill is not to censor. It is not to stop people


believing and seeing and having transactions in private to the extent that they can today. The object of the Bill is to stop things being thrust down people's throats whether or not they like them. For those reasons I commend the Bill to the House.

7.58 p.m.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: I am sorry for the Home Secretary, who believes that every discussion of this subject evokes headlines. I can foresee that tomorrow's newspapers may be preoccupied with things other than public indecency. Nevertheless, what we are discussing, although it does not merit the kind of trailer which has been given to it, is an important Bill. The Opposition support the principle on which it is based.
Pornography is filth. We on the Opposition side of the House would take the view that if people in a free society want to see or read filth, it is a matter for their judgment and their conscience. But where filth is foisted upon people who wish to exercise the freedom to withdraw from this kind of literature, free people have a right to be protected if they are seriously offended.
For that reason, we take the view that the content of films, books or stage presentations is, in general, a matter for the individual and subject to the present law on obscenity, but where there is a public display which is likely to cause offence to reasonable people that display should be limited. Therefore, we shall not vote against the Second Reading of the Bill. However, I am bound to say that the Bill goes further than is necessary to support the principle stated by the Home Secretary today. We shall have substantial criticism to make in Committee of a number of parts of the Bill, and on Third Reading we shall want to see what progress has been made in reviewing its content.
Time and time again, the Home Secretary said that the Bill is not about censorship or obscenity, yet in a number of ways it extends the area of censorship. If he wishes to eschew that, clearly the Bill has gone too far and we must limit its provisions. The first area in which it has gone too far is in the fact that Part I ought to have been completely left out. It may be that what goes on in the average cinema club, particularly

those in private houses where there is an admission charge, is totally reprehensible. But people have a free choice about whether to pay to see what is showing, and by extending to private cinema clubs the censorship provisions governing the public presentation of films one is undoubtedly extending the area of censorship, and that has to be justified. I do not think that it is necessary so to extend them, and we shall table amendments to restrict Part I solely to cover the definition of "obscenity".
The definition of "indecency" is the second area where the Bill is too wide. The Home Secretary said that the definition of "indecency "is best left to the courts, because standards change from time to time and between different parts of the country, and because—although he did not specifically use these words—it is a matter for subjective judgment which must depend to some extent upon the mind of the court which decides these issues. But because a general concept of this nature is already contained in our law and the courts have to exercise their minds in relation to it, that does not mean to say that we should not set some kind of limit to the way in which it is interpreted.
The Home Secretary said that "indecency" has been held to include violence and the sadistic presentation of violence. We shall have to discuss that point in Committee, but I am not certain that "indecency" includes violence, although we would wish it to do so. That also seems to be the wish of the Home Secretary and of some hon. Members on the other side of the House. Therefore, it might be as well if some provision were put into the Bill to indicate that when we use the word "indecency" we intend it to refer to violence or to the sadistic presentation of violence. It would be better if we were a little clearer on this point.
The most recent case which dealt with the definition of "indecency" was that of Regina v. Stanley in the Court of Appeal in 1965, when the Lord Chief Justice said that the word "indecent" is the same as "obscene", save and except that they are all in a graduated scale and "obscene" is rather higher in the scale than "indecent". But if the word "indecent" means the same as "obscene", clearly the Bill goes rather wider than the Home Secretary intends.
The Home Secretary has said that a display does not include the contents of work, or some of the suggestions which my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Mr. Hugh Jenkins) made. There has to be a display in the accepted meaning of the term, but it may be necessary for us to make plain that what we have in mind is a person walking along a public street and being offended by what he can see. I doubt very much whether it is necessary for us to go much further than that. Is it necessary for us to say that if he goes into a building to which he and other members of the public have free access he must be protected against what he might see there, when the nature of the building may be enough to warn him that what he sees will cause him offence? What we are really trying to stop is the unjustified and unsolicited portrayal of sex or violence which might cause offence. If a person chooses to go into a building knowing that he may find something that will give him offence, that may be regrettable but it is up to him to protect himself by not going into the building. Therefore, I should like to define a little more closely what is said about public display in Clause 6.
I accept that the moving picture machine has been a stock joke for many years. On the odd occasions when I have looked at "What the Butler Saw," he did not seem to have seen very much, and I doubt whether it requires all the majesty of the law to prevent it. I hear sotto voce whispers from the Minister that he has seen more than I have seen and even more than what the butler saw. That indicates the real difficulty in this field. Whenever one discusses this subject with Home Office or with the Director of Public Prosecutions, they always have more filth in their drawers than any pornographic merchant.

Mr. William Hamling: Does my hon. Friend mean by that that Ministers of State and other Home Office Ministers are corrupt?

Mr. Lyon: I shall come to that point in due course.
I emphasise what the Home Secretary said. The Bill is not, and should not be, about obscenity. It should not be about what might deprave or corrupt. It is simply about what might cause offence on public display. It is a public nuisance

Bill. It is not a censorship Bill. If we could keep to that line I think that would be acceptable to the vast majority of hon. Members.
If the Home Secretary has been looking at what the butler should not have seen and has been corrupted, it is another area of the law which should deal with that and not this Bill. After all, the Home Secretary pointed to the discretion. One must pay to see what the butler saw. One must make the choice.
It is not an issue on which I would go to the stake. I merely say that one has extended to a small degree the area of censorship and one is not concerned about public display. By its very nature it is not public.
The next matter is the question of indecent sounds. I confess that I do not know what these are. I have a shrewd suspicion that the Home Secretary does not know what they are and that we are legislating for the future when modern technology may be able to project orally what at present it must project visually to promote porn. We had better wait till technology reaches that stage before we try to define what protection the ordinary individual should have in relation to it.
I will listen with interest to all the information available to the Home Office when we get into Committee on what might be indecent sounds, but I suspect that here again we are straying into an area of censorship, and, in so far as indecent sounds are taken to mean words as well, I am not at all sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Putney is not right in saying that here at least is a question of considerable importance. Let us take the case of someone on Speakers' Corner who is exercising his freedom to say what he likes. Though what he says is not obscene, it may be considered to be indecent by some of his listeners. If he is then taken to be orally displaying within the meaning of Clause 8, this might be an area in which free speech is in danger.

Mr. Rees-Davies: I remind the hon. Gentleman of the existing law, which dates back to 1828 under the Town Police Clauses Act, which provides that anybody who sings any profane or obscene song or ballad shall be guilty of an offence. This is merely widening that.


Has not the hon. Gentleman had the opportunity of listening to the well-known record "John and Marcia", which records sounds made during sexual intercourse?

Mr. Lyon: I suspect that our sojourn in Committee will be of extreme interest and of educational value. I have not had the opportunity of listening to that record. No doubt provision will be made for playing it to us so that we know what we are dealing with. I look forward with interest to what the hon. Gentleman will have to say about that in Committee.
The next question is in relation to advertising. A somewhat hysterical article appeared in The Guardian this morning based upon a so-called legal opinion which was available to one of the societies which has been writing to us about the Bill. On most of the counts I found it of little help, but I think that there is something in the suggestion about advertising. I thought that I caught a whisper from the Home Secretary that he is a little uneasy about Clause 9.
It is obviously right, in relation to Clause 10 dealing with unsolicited material, that the law which was first put forward by the hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. David Steel) has been found to be deficient. Although persons do not now send the indecent material, they send the advertising material which describes the indecent material and thereby gives almost as much offence to those who receive it. The gravamen of the mischief there is the unsolicited nature of the material. It is the invasion of privacy which causes offence there. To apply the same test to advertising in general goes too far.
I see that Mr. Paul Raymond, when asked how he would tell the passing public what was going on inside the Whitehall Theatre, was left to describe the naked ladies in his show. I assume that it was for that reason that the clause was inserted into the Bill, because the description itself might give offence. That would be pressing too hard the tender susceptibilities of anybody who might be passing by.
What I think causes offence at present is the portrayal of what goes on inside by means of pictures in the advertise-

ments. If we can get rid of that, we shall have done all we need to do to reduce offence caused to passers-by. I do not think that we then have to go on to look at the kind of description in words which might be given in its place to advertise what is going on inside. We might very well trespass into the area of censorship generally if we were to try to limit words rather than pictures in this way.
I am therefore a little uneasy about the advertising provision, and we shall do our best to suggest helpful amendments. I am sure that the whole clause will need to be discussed carefully in Committee, and it may be that it is not needed in the Bill.
The next question arises on trial by jury. If we are to decide what is indecency by the standards of the reasonable man, which is the way that the law normally interprets these matters, the reasonable man ipso facto being the court which decides it, there is a case for saying, even in relation to this kind of offence which will merely be a public mischief offence rather than a more serious matter of obscenity, that on occasions judges would be assisted by knowing what a jury would say in relation to the kind of material that is being put before the court.
It is true that under the Bill the prosecution will be able to elect, if it wishes, to go on trial by jury and probably will choose so to elect in a case which causes it some difficulty. However, it would be much better if defendants were allowed to go for trial by jury in borderline cases. It is inconceivable that defendants would want to go for trial by jury in cases which were clearly proved because the punishment which will be available to the court on indictment will be so much greater than that available to the court on summary conviction. Therefore, I do not think that the election will be taken up in most cases but it is right that defendants should be able to elect for a jury trial if they wish so to elect and if they think that the law is being unusually onerous in their case.
For that reason I should prefer that Clause 11 were so amended as to make it possible to elect for trial by jury. This could be done by simply extending the term of imprisonment to four months. I have no doubt that the House would be


prepared to accept that if it accepted the general principle.
I come now to a matter which causes us some concern on this side, which my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin (Mrs. Shirley Williams) has asked me specifically to raise; namely, the arrest provisions. It seems to us that in the present circumstances of pornography the law has not proved deficient merely because an officer has to ask for a warrant before he may make an arrest. If a bookseller has taken premises, obviously he will not change his premises because there is the possibility of an arrest. Where the display is on a public hoarding, or where there is some kind of permanent cinematograph display, for instance, it is inconceivable that it will be easily moved because a police officer is likely to apply for a warrant.
I cannot see why it is necessary to give the police this extra power of arrest, and there is one aspect of the matter which worries us a little. None of us wishes to over-emphasise any element of corruption in the police, and I do not think that we should, but it undoubtedly exists, and where it exists it is to be found mainly in relation to two areas of crime enforcement—one in connection with drugs; the other in connection with pornography.
If one is to give an individual constable on the beat the power to arrest, there may be the possibility of opening up another avenue of corruption. I put it no higher than that, but it is a risk, and I do not see that the risk is justified by any gain that we make by extending the powers of arrest of the average constable.

Mr. Norman Fowler: The hon. Gentleman is making the mistake of assuming that the trader will remain in business. Surely, the main characteristics of this kind of trade are that front men are put in, and when a summons is served on the front men they disappear. We are not here dealing with a trader who remains in business over any period of time.

Mr. Lyon: On the contrary, it is the hon. Gentleman, I suggest, who is making a mistake about the context of the Bill. We are concerned here with public display, not with the character of the books

or what is inside them or even the permanent operation of providing dirty books or dirty displays. The issue here is what one can see as one passes along the street, and that is likely to be there at least long enough for a warrant to be obtained, if one is required. We are not dealing in that sense, therefore, with a fly-by-night operation. At least, I do not think so. I am willing to be persuaded, but I do not think so.
I hope, as the Home Secretary hopes, that the upshot of the Bill will be that we shall clean up our streets in a way that will allow people to walk through Soho without any sense of distress. I hope that that is right. But I do not hope that we shall put burdens which we do not put at present upon the ordinary citizen who may wish to read or see pornography, it being his choice whether he wants to wallow in filth or not.
I give one illustration. It is clear from the Bill, I think, that the front cover of at least some editions of Playboy and Mayfair may in future have to be tidied up. I hope so. I shall feel a little easier walking into a W. H. Smith bookshop on the average railway station if that is so. But I consider that it would be going too far if such a document were taken by the average citizen into a railway train, on to the Underground or into some other public place, there to be opened by him in such a way as to make it visible, and he were then liable to be prosecuted under the Bill.
I see nothing in the Bill which excludes that, because it does not say that the public display has to be for commercial gain. It may be that this also is an aspect of the matter on which we shall have to amend the Bill in order to limit it to the purposes for which it was clearly intended, and which we should support.
Most of the questions which I have raised have been Committee points, but that was inevitable, given that we accept the general principle of the Bill. I hope, however, that I have said enough to show that it is not sufficient simply to state the principle and then hope that the Bill has translated that principle into effective legislative action. Indeed, I doubt that it has in this case. I think that it may do so by the time we reach Third Reading. I hope that that will be so, and that the Home Secretary and


other Ministers will be willing to concede such reasonable amendments as we can produce in Committee. If that is done, the Bill will, I hope, do a great deal to ensure that ordinary people are not affronted in future as they have been in the past.

8.26 p.m.

Mr. W. F. Deedes: That was a cautious speech, I thought. The hon. Member for York (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon) reserved his position somewhat, and he confirmed the suspicion which I had before he spoke that we are probably in for a rather difficult Committee stage. Those who find it difficult to oppose my right hon. Friend's logic on the principle of the Bill will, I think, not hesitate to try to divert him—I shall not say defeat him—in detail, and some of the comments of the hon. Member for York confirm me in that belief.
Moreover, I am not convinced that the acceptance by the hon. Gentleman of the general principles, signifying, therefore, general agreement on the Bill in this Chamber, will in all respects necessarily affect opinion outside the House. I think that there will be a great deal of damning with faint praise, and also, I suspect, some outright opposition to the whole Bill.
I am glad, therefore, of this fleeting opportunity to commend what my right hon. Friend is trying to do, since it may be a short-lived triumph. As he himself said, every course he could have taken on this desperately difficult subject was open to attack either from Lord Longford's friends or from his enemies, and, as he rightly said, he has endeavoured to steer the middle course.
My right hon. Friend has chosen a course which some of us—I think that we are entitled to claim this—have been urging for some time, namely, an attempt to distinguish between private behaviour, which is not our business—or ought not to be our business—and public behaviour, which is. That is the broad approach of the Bill, and it was the principle, as my right hon. Friend said, which was adopted in respect of the Wolfenden proposals in regard to both homosexual behaviour and prostitution, and to some extent it was the approach which we adopted, though perhaps in a rather different way, in regard to gambling.
Before he has finished, my right hon. Friend will be accused of humbug, and of pushing the thing under the carpet, as was his predecessor when the Wolfenden proposals on street offences were put through. But he ought not to be overmuch concerned about that. Many charges, I am sure, will be levelled against my right hon. Friend by people who do not want anything done at all. I think that they are wrong.
The hon. Member for York has dwelt at some length—and no doubt quite correctly—on the Committee stage, I shall offer some general reflections on the Bill. I think that pornography, hard and soft, has become something of a growth industry. It is still growing. I do not see what is to stop its continual growth. I do not see any sort of end in sight. We do not have to prove that it is undermining our society. Emphatically, it is not. As my right hon. Friend has said, the machinery of social restraint is breaking down. Therefore, the criminal law must be brought in to redress the balance. Pornography is only a small part of that collapse of our social order.
It could be argued that much of the stuff which is being purveyed, and particularly displayed, is not doing some sections of our society much good either. One of the paradoxes—and there are a number of them here—is our growing and intense concern about mental health but our unwillingness to admit that there may be a minority—and I suspect that there is—which is adversely affected by some of this exploitation of human nastiness. That is not a reference to sex or the cover of Playboy. I am referring to sadism and perversion which is an increasingly popular form of commercial exploitation.
As to our rights to interfere, I have always been struck by an analogy which Lord Devlin put forward. In his essay about enforcement of morals he rightly said that every man had the right to get drunk inside his home every night of his life if he wished. We could not interfere with that. But suppose, said Lord Devlin, that a quarter of the nation, a third of the nation, or a half of the nation, decided to get drunk in their homes every night? Would the State not then feel a need to interfere? That is a rather good analogy. When we consider the public display of some of the stuff which we are now discussing it will be seen to come close to


the example which Lord Devlin puts forward.
Part of Lord Devlin's argument was in opposition to the general doctrine of John Stuart Mill. The strange thing about John Stuart Mill and his essay On Liberty, often quoted, is that it is seldom read right through. Perhaps the hon. Member for York will remember that there is a passage in the essay in which Mill excepts from his liberal generalisations children and says that the State has a distinct duty to protect children, whatever attitude we may take about the right of the individual to do things which do not hurt other people. That exception seems relevant and in a sense it is the aspect which should be stressed. In 1955 we quickly enacted the Children and Young Persons (Harmful Publications) Act to deal with horror comics. They were mainly imported. I do not recall any beating of breasts then about the obscenity of censorship or the fact that we were clobbering material which was otherwise circulating freely. It seems now that children may enter a bit into Clause 7.
Hon. Members will know who I mean by Dr. Benjamin Spock, who, I believe, has brought many American children into this world. He describes himself, or he did, as an uncompromising social libertarian. He seems to be a respectable chap for a Conservative hon. Member to quote. His views on this matter have undergone some change. There is one passage which is relevant to the Bill which I shall quote. It appears in his book which is entitled, "Decent and Indecent." He says:
The abrupt and aggressive breaking down of inhibitions can be disturbing to a society as a whole and particularly to its children, even if sincere efforts are made to shield children. This seems more risky when a society already has soaring rates of delinquency and crime, an insatiable appetite for brutality on television and what I consider an unprecedented loss of belief in man's worthiness.
That is an important passage. Dr. Spock has almost gone a cycle in his libertarian beliefs. He is there saying something which people should think about when we discuss the Bill in greater detail.
There is also the right to be protected from the outrageous, the shocking or the appalling, either singly or in family groups. That remains a valued freedom. It is not only children who merit protect-

tion. Older people are shocked. I have received distressed letters from elderly constituents who have unsolicited material pushed in their mail. We need not dwell too much on the protection of young children. Nor do I accept the cynical view that they know all about it from six years upwards.
The elderly are deeply offended by some of the material which, at random, has been flying through their mail. In so far as Part 2 meets that obligation, I endorse it, but I am much less confident about Part 1. First, it seems that the film industry generally is in an almost unrescuable state of financial and moral collapse. Television has driven the film world into some very strange channels. Some of it is now in a state of malodorous decay.
We have our own methods of control, which Part I is designed to supplement. What I doubt—and my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and I have had exchanges about this—is whether even our existing controls contained in our certificate system, are working effectively in respect of children and young people. I doubt whether many young people are challenged about their age when they go to the cinema and even if they are often there are a great many minors working in cinemas. The age limit was raised from 16 to 18 in 1970. But this, like the question about where television stands—and I am not quite satisfied with what my right hon. Friend said about television and the two broadcasting organisations—is something we can take our time on in Committee.
I return to the nature of the challenge which my right hon. Friend will face over the Bill. I am not deluded by the relatively calm reception his Bill has received after a strenuous day in the House today. It has always seemed to me extremely odd that this outbreak of pornography and degradation for profit should coincide with our enormous concern about the environment. Leaving morality to one side, it can hardly be contested that some of the muck which is flaunted in London, particularly in Soho, is downright ugly. As Pamela Hansford Johnson, otherwise known as Lady Snow, said
Yes, and raising ugliness all round us. No beauty, terrible or otherwise, is being born. Soho is a nightmare of ugliness, and so is the facade of many a cinema.


That is true, yet to some to clean this up is a deprivation of liberty. Surely that is a great nonsense. We are appalled by smog, but not by pervasive smut. There is a great gap in logic and thinking there.
There is another odd aspect. There are a great number of radical figures currently striking attitudes about sex discrimination. That is the exploitation of woman by man, as I understand it. But what else are the strip clubs or the girlie magazines or those titillating cinema displays and, indeed, some of Mr. Murdoch's newspapers? Dignity seems to me to be indivisible here. I understand that my right hon. Friend is to produce a Bill about sex discrimination. I confess that the subject does not excite me, but there are radical people who are excited by it. There is no doubt a clear dividing line between exploiting women for prostitution, which is still subject to criminal punishment, and exploiting them for blue films, for kinky voyeurs. Where that line is to be drawn baffles me. Perhaps it will be clearer to other hon. Members.

Mr. Rees-Davies: Surely my right hon. Friend is saying that if we are to protect ourselves from the pollution of the environment we should equally protect ourselves from the pollution of the human mind in public. It is just a different form of pollution.

Mr. Deedes: I am asking, what about sex discrimination? People will defend all sorts of things being done in the name of what we are discussing tonight, but not in the name of office workers. The Obscene Publications Act has underlined the extraordinary difficulty of seeking any close definition of such words as "deprave and corrupt", and I am relieved that my right hon. Friend has avoided them. How those words are to be interpreted is to be left to the courts, and we should be unwise to exaggerate what the consequences will be. This is how the theatres were left after the censor was abolished by the right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss). Some managers then expressed the fear that they would be overtaken by prosecutions, that they would put on shows and would not know what was to happen to them until the third night. I do not think that

in fact a single theatre has been prosecuted since the right hon. Gentleman's Bill reached the statute book.
There will be considerable disparity between the decisions of different courts. My right hon. Friend defends this and appears rather to like the idea. But one newsagent may well find himself in hot water whereas another, for something much more offensive, may keep out of it. My right hon. Friend, moreover, will be swimming against the tide of opinion in favour of standardised punishments, though it is not a tide which I support. There will be less difficulty about Clause 10, which deals with unsolicited articles through the mail, because the clause offers a flat standard of judgment and there will be fewer problems.
I do not believe that the Government can be accused, as I am sure they will be by some Members of the Opposition, of tackling this problem with a sledgehammer. It is a very limited curb on the rapid commercialised debasement of our culture, and I do not think that any reasonable man will be persuaded easily that it represents a serious invasion of his liberty.
Nor am I persuaded that these infringements of human dignity—to put it mildly—add very much to the sum of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If they made everyone more cheerful, they might be excused. But they do not. However, so long as they add appreciably to the wealth of a minority, they will continue—as the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan), when Home Secretary, said about gambling—to contribute a criminal fringe to the business. Where profits such as these are to be made there will be the roughest kind of rivalry, as we have seen in other parts of the world.
A check is overdue and, before the Bill is assailed for its omissions and because it is alleged to be unworkable, I believe that it should be said that the principle is right. Whether it is workable will depend not simply on my right hon. Friend or his enforcement officers but upon how strong-minded we are to prevent the destruction of our culture by techniques which, when seeking the demoralisation of subject races, the Nazis on occasion found most valuable.

8.43 p.m.

Mr. Arthur Davidson: The right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) is always very anticipatory. Oddly enough, it had been my intention to say, as the right hon. Gentleman suggested someone would, that this is a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Unfortunately, although I go along with the intentions of the Home Secretary, I do not believe that he will crack the nut that he wants to crack with this sledgehammer. That is one of my objections to the Bill and the way that it is drafted.
If the Home Secretary was likely to succeed in getting rid of hard-core pornography, he would have no greater supporter than me. He will not get rid of it with this Bill. To do the right hon. Gentleman justice, he has not suggested that he will get rid of it. But a lot of people believe that that is what the Bill is intended to do.
The Home Secretary knows that those who profit by selling pornography will continue to do so. They will continue to operate, though a little more underground than present. Their profits will increase. They will carry on their sleazy trade. They will engage their protection boys to look after their interests. They will in no way be affected by the Bill.
My fear is that ordinary, decent newsagents and booksellers will find themselves in great difficulty as a result of the way in which the Bill is drafted. At present booksellers and newsagents sell some of the magazines which have been referred to, such as Playboy and Penthouse. I have never read them and have no wish to do so. However, they appear to be widely read. We are told that the Government believe in competition and free enterprise. People seem to buy the magazines; otherwise, they would not be sold. I fear that the newsagents will no longer be able to sell such magazines, which are certainly not pornographic, even if a bit indecent, but they will be sold underground by the hard-core pornographers. We shall then have a situation that the Home Secretary does not want. We are in danger of increasing the profits of the very people that everyone is opposed to.
I never lecture hon. Members on the law, because there are far more distinguished lawyers than I in the House. But one of the basic principles of the law

is that if one creates a criminal offence one should define that offence. That is elementary, because if people are put at risk they should know how they are likely to offend the law. The Bill not only does not define what "indecent" is, but takes pride in not defining it. Newsagents will be perplexed to know whether they should display particular magazines. Perhaps they will not display them, when in fact they would have had no trouble with the law in displaying them. Because the law is so deliberately vague they will not dare take the risk. Once again, ordinary, decent citizens will be penalised, and we shall play into the hands of the very people who will take the risk and pocket the profits.
How far does the Bill go? I was brought up in a very Tory town, in Southport. There is no more respectable town in the world. A traditional form of amusement in seaside resorts is what might be called the suggestive postcard, of ladies with rather large bottoms and even larger bosoms, of henpecked husbands and rather suggestive jokes. Such cards could well be termed indecent as the Bill stands. Presumably we shall no longer be allowed to send them home.
I hope that when the Conservative Party next meets in Blackpool its members will be careful about sending such cards through the post. Not only will the newsagent be in trouble for displaying them, but they will be in trouble for sending them to me unsolicited. That illustrates the absurdity of the Bill. It is far too wide. It will hit the things that are basically harmless while allowing those that are menacing to continue.
I wish to refer to Clause 9, which deals with advertisements. Paragraph (a) defines what a public place is. That is all right, but paragraph (b) cannot stand. It reads:
Where any article is advertised as being for sale or hire in any place and …
(b) the advertisement is likely to be taken as indicating that the article consists of or contains indecent matter …
the person advertising the article shall be guilty of an offence.
To some people almost anything may be taken as likely to indicate that an article consistes of indecent matter, and to some people nothing is indecent. Once again, the wording is so wide that it would let loose a whole range of prosecutions, and


I am sure that the Home Secretary does not want that to happen.
I agree entirely that the public should be protected from having indecent matter or offensive material thrust down their unwilling throats, but I also think that people should be protected from narrow-minded interfering busybodies launching prosecutions on completely trivial matters just because they regard those matters as in some way indecent. I fear that the Bill will open the floodgates to that sort of prosecution. There should at least be provision in the Bill to limit prosecutions to the Director of Public Prosecutions or the Attorney-General. Otherwise, there will be a whole succession of prosecutions and a whole succession of definitions given by different courts, which will lead to a throughly unsatisfactory state of affairs because everybody in the long run will be left in a state of uncertainty.
My instinct is to oppose the Bill, but I do not think that it is worth opposing. It is a lot of fuss over nothing because the evil that the Bill seeks to mend will not be mended by it. What is it that people complain of? First, they complain about material that they regard as offensive coming through their letterboxes. I quite agree that that is wrong and should be dealt with, and I am fully behind the Home Secretary in that. I do not think that his definition of "indecent" is correct. It is too wide. It should be made narrower and much more definite. As one who was involved in the introduction of the Unsolicited Goods and Services Bill, I think that it is wrong that private letter-boxes and doorsteps should be used for commercial ends.
The second complaint that is made to me is that there are too many sex films. That may or may not be so, but those films will not be affected by the Bill. If, as people say, their freedom of choice is limited because they cannot go into a cinema without seeing a sex scene, that freedom of choice will not be affected because those films will continue to be made. The danger is that they will not be advertised as such and people will go into the cinema believing that they are going to see one type of film whereas they will, in fact, see a film of quite a different type. That cannot be right.

That is not protection. That is exposing the public to the very danger that they do not want to be exposed to.

Mr. Hugh Jenkins: The Greater London Council is recommending that there should be displayed in the foyer a description of the film being shown so that the public are forewarned. In their confusion the Government appear to be recommending precisely the opposite to what the GLC thinks it right to do.

Mr. Davidson: The people should know what they are going to see, and this should be clearly stated. There is now showing in the West End a film entitled "I was a Teenage Virgin". One knows from the title what one is going to see One does not have to see the film, and, in my view, one is daft to go and see such a film. Certainly somebody does not have to stand outside the cinema and gaze at the stills to know what the film is about. However, I suppose that similar films will continue to be made and might be called by some other title. I hesitate to suggest one myself.
I wonder whether the Home Secretary can tell me how newspapers will be affected by this legislation. Newspapers are on public display. What will happen in respect of billboards advertising newspapers. We all know that the News of the World is a great upholder of morality and takes a high stand on social and political issues. But its front pages in two recent editions contained some rather explicit headlines. One headline on 4th November read "Poisoned wife's sex secret" with the sub-heading "I lost count of her lovers', says husband". If that were advertised as such, that advertisement would be likely to be taken as indicating that the article consisted of or contained indecent matter. Could that particular headline be exposed in that newspaper by being displayed in a newsagents' shop?
Another headline in the News of the World on 11th November read "Strip king's secret diary". That, to me, indicated something likely to consist of indecent matter. Can that headline be displayed or can it not? This is one of the uncertainties thrown up by the Bill.

Mr. Eric S. Heffer: But that is not indecent.

Mr. Davidson: My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) says that that is not indecent. My hon. Friend is an expert in industrial relations, and I would never dream of interrupting him—[Interruption.] There is nothing on which my hon. Friend has not ideas, as we all know. But there are many people who would regard the contents of that article as indecent.

Mr. Heffer: Since my hon. Friend is going out of his way to be insulting to me—and I was certainly not trying to be insulting to him—let me tell him what I am saying. I am saying that the headlines in a newspaper are not a display which would be offensive to people, and, having seen those headlines, people do not have to buy the newspaper. The point at issue is that ordinary people can walk down the street and see obscene displays that they do not wish to see. It is offensive to them and to their families. It is not the same argument, and my hon. Friend should know as much about this subject as I know about industrial relations.

Mr. Davidson: I know slightly more. Perhaps that would be carrying the argument too far. I do not wish to carry on a dispute with my hon. Friend, because I am very fond of him. It is a little odd for him to suggest that somebody else is insulting him. We all know that this is something he would never be to anybody else.
My hon. Friend is wrong in his approach. The headline would be on display; the advertisement on the newsstand would display the headlines. That display must come within the Bill's provisions, and, therefore, my hon. Friend, with great respect to him, is wrong. The Home Secretary must clear up the point. I could go on and on about the anomalies which the Bill would throw up.
The Bill is so badly drafted that inevitably it will cause a great deal of trouble for enforcing authorities in future. I feel that it is not worth opposing for the reasons I have given. Candidly, it is a litle odd that at this time, particularly on this day when we are faced with the worst balance of payments crisis in our history, we should be discussing a Bill of such triviality.

9 p.m.

Sir Gilbert Longden: The hon. Member for Accrington (Mr. Arthur Davidson) seemed to suggest that he was in agreement with the objectives of the Bill as described by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. Indeed, the hon. Gentleman quoted his words.

Mr. Arthur Davidson: I am in agreement with what the Home Secretary wants to do, which is to get rid of offensive or indecent displays to which people object as they are walking along the street. That is what the Home Secretary wants to do and I am in complete agreement with him on that.

Sir Gilbert Longden: I am glad to hear that. But the hon. Gentleman did not say how he would do it. Indeed, he devoted his speech to criticising the Bill, and most of that criticism was misconceived. The Bill has nothing to do with the content of films shown in cinemas, although it will sweep under the carpet the offensive matter that he dislikes just as much as we do. That is what happened to the prostitutes, but it has not led to an increase in prostitution. It is something to do that, The hon. Gentleman also underrated the intelligence of newsagents if he thought that they would not be able to decide what was and what was not going to cause offence. In short, I disagree with the hon. Gentleman's views.
As my right hon. Friend said, on 13th April I moved the Second Reading of a Bill which had all-party support and sought to do what parts of Part II of this Bill seek to do. My Bill, as he also said, was the result of the deliberations of a sub-committee of the Society of Conservative Lawyers, of which my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General was then the chairman and my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) was the vice-chairman. My Bill was their Bill, but I had been lucky in the Ballot, and, with their assent, I appropriated their Bill to give what my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) called a "nudge" to the Government.
It was a good debate, as the Home Secretary has admitted. I had many letters from all over the United Kingdom and the United States about that debate,


as it was widely reported there, too. My hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State responded on that occasion by promising legislative proposals to deal with this issue as soon as opportunity permitted and asked me to withdraw my Bill.
Now, only seven months later, opportunity has permitted. Therefore, I wish to take this opportunity of thanking him and my right hon. Friend most cordially for being as good as their word.
I will confine what little I have to say to Part II of the Bill. It will be little, because I expressed my views at much greater length in the debate on 13th April and I do not want to repeat them now.
In a nutshell, the object of Part II is to prevent the public display of indecent matter and to protect people of all ages from having thrust upon them unsolicited material which is offensive to them. I support everything that my right hon. Friend said about the commercial exploitation of prurience which is not by any means on the decrease.
In the debate on 13th April I ventured to quote a line of Juvenal which I translated as, "What matter the mischief if there is money in it?"

Mr. Hamling: Good old capitalists.

Sir Gilbert Longden: They are all capitalists, I am sorry to say. They display the least acceptable face of capitalism.

Mr. Hamling: The hon. Gentleman defends them. We do not.

Sir Gilbert Longden: I do not defend them at all. That is the motive that motivates them, "What matter the mischief if there is money in it?" It all happened in the days of ancient Rome and Juvenal was commenting upon it.

Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson: May I remind my hon. Friend that at least one State corporation advertised a "weekend in London, plus girl", so it is not just capitalism?

Sir Gilbert Longden: State capitalism is the worst kind of capitalism.
The Bill does not deal with the word "obscene", and that is as well, considering some of the most extraordinary

decisions that have been made on that word. Here it is a question of decency, and it is an eloquent commentary on the present age that the meaning of even that word is in doubt. According to the Oxford Dictionary, it means "propriety of behaviour", or "what is required by good taste". The Customs and Excise Department has never had any trouble in deciding what is decent or indecent, and I do not think that many of its decisions have been challenged.
Most of us—I am sure most magistrates and most newsagents—would have had no difficulty in coming to a just verdict a short time ago. But it is extraordinary how quickly times have changed, and values with them. Who could believe that only 25 years ago Mr. Churchill listed the upholding of the Christian religion first among nine principles of Conservatism. Who could believe that only 25 years ago Dr. Edith Summerskill, as she was—then a Minister in the Labour Government—complained bitterly about a film then being shown in London? I am sorry that I cannot remember the name of the film, but when I read it struck me as being no more offensive than Mary Poppins. Today, on the contrary, we hear the film censor expressing the opinion that to refuse a certificate to "Clockwork Orange" would be anti-social, even, immoral. To my mind, a society which acquiesces in the showing of a film such as that deserves all that is coming to it, and one thing that may come to it is the realisation that there are worse things than censorship.
But at least such films need not be witnessed. It is the offensive material which must be viewed, in one way or another, which is the target of the Bill. No doubt the Bill is susceptible of amelioration by amendment in Committee—what Bill that was ever drafted was not?—but I hope that it will not be watered down. For example, I find myself wondering why television broadcasts are exempt. The noble Baroness, Lady Young, in another place expressed the Government's view—and it was repeated today by my right hon. Friend—that the governing boards of the BBC and the ITA are already obligated by statute not to offend against good taste or decency. Apart from the fact that they sometimes do so offend, I can find only Section 3


of the Television Act which imposes such an obligation on the ITA. Where is there a similar provision affecting the BBC?
I wondered, too, why a picture has to be "moving" in order to be indecent. I am sure that many butlers were titillated by quite static activities.

Mr. Hamling: They came from the still room.

Sir Gilbert Longden: These are Committee points. I simply cannot understand how any hon. Member could wish to vote against the objects of the Bill, and I am glad to hear that that is not to happen.
I conclude by quoting some words of Lord Ardwick, because they seem to be a most apposite summing up. He said:
I believe that people expect some leadership to help them sort out their own attitudes. I think that we should do this not as moral guardians of society but rather as communicators advancing a point of view. We should not be afraid to condemn what we regard as obscene simply out of fear of being regarded as illiberal … We have to clear our own minds, so that we can distinguish between the desirable, the tolerable and the intolerable."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 21st April, 1971; Vol. 317, c. 745.]
That, I hope, is what the Bill will help us to do, and I shall heartily support it.

9.9 p.m.

Mr. David Steel: As a previous speaker has mentioned, on a day of such considerable events it is possible to raise only two and a half cheers for this piece of legislation. Its objective is certainly one which I and my colleagues would wish to support on the understanding that it is the Government's intention to deal with the whole question of what has been called visual pollution and that it is that which is their target, and not on the understanding that it is the Government's intention to extend the realm of censorship.
A number of speakers in the debate, particularly the right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) were busy trying to quote J. S. Mill without having quotations in front of them. I suppose it is appropriate that a speaker on the Liberal benches should quote what he said. He said
The only purpose for which power can be rightly exercised over any member of a civilised community against his will, is to prevent harm to others.

Mill went on to say:
It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to say that this doctrine is meant to apply only to human beings in the maturity of their faculties. We are not speaking of children, or of young persons below the age which the law may fix as that of manhood or womanhood.
That, too, is important, particularly when we come to the section of the Bill dealing with slot machines.
I have no doubt that the most important area in which people complain of salacious material is that received through their letter-boxes, be it the material itself or the advertising promotion of dubious material. I very much welcome the two parts of the Bill which the Home Secretary believes will successfully tackle this problem.
We have moved a long way from the time that the Unsolicited Goods and Services Act was being debated in the House. I moved a new clause to that Bill, which the Government resisted. We defeated the Government on a Friday afternoon and persuaded them that they must look again at this matter. An attempt was made to redraft it in the other place. The Government say that it has not proved effective. I hope that this Bill will be effective and that offensive material coming through the letter-box will be stopped.
Secondly, advertising, particularly street advertising, including the exteriors of cinemas, is another area in which the term "visual pollution" ought to apply. The right hon. Member for Ashford was quite right to include this in our general concern for the state of the environment. Some of the displays that we see are utterly offensive, particularly in cinemas in London, although they are spreading to other cities as well. People want these displays to be stopped, and it is right and proper, as a matter of public policy, that the Government should stop them.
Thirdly, and perhaps more difficult, is the question of displays in shops, such as newsagents and so on. I am not certain how far the Bill goes in this respect. I suspect that it goes further than is reasonable. It is reasonable that the public should be protected from displays in shop windows or in other places which they have, unavoidably, in their line of vision. I am not so certain that it is right that we should try to control any further what is on sale inside shops which clearly exist


for the purpose of selling material of this kind. I am not at all certain how far the Bill goes. People do not pay to go into a shop to buy magazines and books of this kind, but the shop is a place to which they have access. I am told that in Sweden—I have not seen this in recent years—which is a country noted for the liberality of its legislation on matters of obscenity, the Government are very strict on the question of public display, but once inside a shop which exists for the purpose of selling this material the sky is the limit. If that is so, that seems to me the basic definition of preventing offence to the public at large while not denying the right of the individual and his freedom to buy what he wants.
If the Bill is to be effective, it may tackle what the hon. Member for York (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon) described as a particularly indecent edition of one of the popular "girlie" magazines on display at a railway station newsagents, and it may be right and proper that it tackles that. But, on the other hand, we do not want to go so far as to stop the sale of material which may be more indecent but is behind the doors of a small shop. If that is the intention of the Bill—perhaps the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—I think it is a reasonable one.
Similarly, I agree with what the Home Secretary said about slot machines. If these machines are in arcades to which children frequently have access because they want to play on other machines, it is wholly right and proper that they should be stopped. But if these same machines are inside premises to which the public have access only because they pay to go there, I do not think it is right that these machines should be stopped. I am not certain whether or not the Bill covers that situation. I hope that the Committee will make an attempt at defining "indecency", simply because I believe it is right that violence ought to be included and I am not certain from the decisions of the courts whether it is. My only concern about Part I of the Bill is that it is possible that the genuine film society may find its activities hampered. Perhaps the Minister will say something about that point.
As regards the drafting of the Bill, I think that as a House we ought to protest about the wording of Clause 1. It seems

to me that to have an Act of Parliament which tries to add exemptions to exemptions is quite wrong in principle. We shall have three Acts covering the licensing of films—the Acts of 1909 and 1952 and this one. There is surely a case here for consolidation of some kind, so that we get a sensible piece of chapter and verse.
For some reason which I have not been able to understand, Clause 5 does not apply to Scotland. Perhaps the Minister will assure us that there will not be free rein in Scotland because of some oversight, and perhaps he will explain whether there is some reason for this exception.
I would end as I began, by saying that this is not by any means a vitally important or essential part of legislation, but it is something which merits the full consideration of the House.

9.17 p.m.

Mr. W. H. K. Baker: Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) and other hon. Gentlemen, I welcome this Bill and the Government's prompt action following the introduction of a Private Member's Bill by my hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, South-West (Sir Gilbert Longden) in the spring of the year. I have no doubt at all that by the time this Bill leaves Committee it will be a better one than it is at present.
When my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary introduced the Bill he said that it would receive criticism on several counts—from those who are against the Bill, from those who think it does not go far enough, and from others. I put myself in the second category, because I do not think it goes far enough. Many features of our national life point the finger at a slither towards moral decadence, and it is true to say that unless some steps are taken—and this may well be one—to arrest that slither, the considerable lowering of standards will go on. It is impossible for the House to legislate to make people good, but we can legislate to prevent people either making fools of themselves or being exploited immorally and for private gain.
My right hon. Friend said that he would probably be taken to task—indeed, he has already been taken to tasks—for imposing censorship under the Bill or for curtailing freedom. In the context of


the Bill there is a considerable difference between freedom and licence. Surely it is licence that the Bill seeks to prevent. With a great deal more money in the hands of the younger generation there is, for the weaker among them, a natural progression from drink, through sex, to drugs. That is a section of the community which we must try to protect.
I welcome the Bill. Indecent displays, blue films and the advertisement of them, and the like, undoubtedly corrupt in appearing to make the seamier side of life more attractive.
Earlier I questioned whether the Bill goes far enough. It is all very well to clean up the covers, but writing can be put on the covers of the present doubtful—to put it no higher—magazines and books indicating what is inside them. That in itself will not do much good. Are the Government convinced that the Obscene Publications Act takes care of the contents of magazines and books of the type to be seen in shops, on railway stations and elsewhere at present? It is no good sweeping the question under the carpet, or we shall be doing only one-tenth of the good that the Bill seeks to do. If the answer to that question is "Yes", why have there not been more prosecutions, and why are so many of what I call obscene and indecent books still available for sale in the shops?
A number of dilemmas already exist in the mind of booksellers and others. If that is so now, what about the future? I quote from a letter published in last Thursday's Evening Standard to illustrate the dilemma at present facing booksellers:
As a retail bookseller I have been offered a supply of paperback novels which I should like to sell as I know they are much in demand.
However, as the contents are, for want of a better word, 'sexy', I feel that they might become the subject of an obscene publications prosecution and before accepting them I telephoned the Director of Public Prosecutions.
They informed me that there is no procedure for advising the public on this question, only that books may be submitted to a local police station who would then offer them for consideration to the Director of Public Prosecutions who would then give their opinion to the local constabulary.
If this Bill becomes an Act, shall we be faced with the same sort of problem? Where are such people as booksellers

to get their advice? If advice is now available, from what source does it come? It will, after the enactment of the Bill, be a pretty cumbersome method to take a case to court by way of getting advice from honest citizens.
The fact that television is exempt under Clause 6 has been mentioned. Television programmes go into many more houses than do sleazy magazines. Visible innuendoes can be quite as damaging as magazine articles and things on display. My hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State will have to be a little more convincing than was my right hon. Friend when dealing with this point.
Presumably, so-called sex shops will come within the ambit of the Bill. Will there be sufficient powers available to close them? I am informed that so far very few have been touched.
I welcome sincerely the application of the Bill to Scotland as well as to England and Wales, since it would obviously be ridiculous to have a tightening up south of the border while allowing licence to continue in Scotland.
The hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. David Steel) asked why Clause 5 did not apply to Scotland. I think that the answer is that the obscenity part, so to call it, of the Obscene Publications Act is already covered by common law in Scotland.
Perhaps my hon. and learned Friend will answer another Scottish question. Why are the cities of Edinburgh, Dundee and Perth excluded from Clause 3(7) whereas Glasgow and Aberdeen are specifically mentioned? Are we to infer that one or other of those two groups is at present more indecent than the other, or vice versa?
I give the Bill ready commendation. Nothing is clearer today than the fact that sex is being exploited for commercial gain. The Bill represents a distinct step in the right direction, and I sincerely hope that the House will give it a Second Reading.

9.27 p.m.

Mr. Eric S. Heffer: I gather that I am almost in a minority of one, at least among those of my hon. Friends who are present in the Chamber, though I doubt that that is true of those who are not present. I


give qualified support to the Bill. I do not believe that every dot and comma is correct, or that every clause should be accepted without amendment. There is a good case for amending several of the clauses, and I hope that in Committee—which, I hasten to add, I hope I am not put on—

Mr. Hamling: My hon. Friend can talk to the Whips about that.

Mr. Heffer: —good work will be done so that a better Bill will come back before the House.
I give the Bill support at this stage, however, and if there were a vote tonight—I understand that my hon. Friends will put up a great battle but are not prepared to carry it into the Lobby—I should vote with the Government. I do not think that I have ever voted with this Government on any occasion up to now, but I should support them in the Lobby tonight because I regard the Bill as a necessary measure.
If I thought that the Bill would introduce stringent forms of censorship, I should oppose it. I support the endeavours of those who wanted, for example, to publish "Lady Chatterley's Lover" without any cuts. I think that that was right. I recognise that some people are inclined to fall over backwards on this issue, rather as the hon. Member for Banff (Mr. W. H. K. Baker) did, and would go much further than is here proposed. I do not want that. But what concerns me, and what leads me to the view that one should argue in favour of some such measure as this, is the danger that the sort of excessive permissiveness which is now developing in certain directions will harm our society. I think that signs of that harm are already visible.
Perhaps I am old-fashioned. Maybe I have old-fashioned concepts about society and what society is about. I have long believed that the basis of our society is the family unit. If we destroy that we destroy society. I passionately believe in the family unit in our society. It is the essence of any decent, good and moral society. I am afraid that in our rightful demand to end some of the attitudes of Mrs. Grundy of the past we have tended to go a bit too far in the other direction and that we are undermining the basis of our society. That is why I

feel as strongly as I do. That is why I have stayed tonight to speak in the debate.
I find it offensive when I walk along the streets of London, my own city or other cities with my niece and nephew—I have no children of my own—or with my mother-in-law, who is an upright decent woman, to come across some lurid posters advertising the sort of film which I personally would never go to see. I find that those with me find it offensive.
What people do behind closed doors and what they do in a private cinema, but not for gain—they may wish to do all sorts of things but that is a matter for them—is something which they must decide, and I protect their rights. However, I do not want them to impose their ideas and their concepts on us. That is all I am saying. I am saying no more and no less than that.
Many hon. Members must have had people writing to them, or attending their surgeries—probably ordinary, decent, solid citizens; Labour, Tory, Liberal or anything else does not matter; they may be God-fearing or non-God fearing—who have been offended by the type of literature which has been sent to them. I have raised the matter in the House, and other hon. Members have done so. That may make me a prude. I see in The Guardian that we apparently have a zeal for puritanism. I must explain to The Guardian writer that puritanism arose from a previous society which had a good deal of licence. Later the balance was put right, as we always eventually get the balance right.
That is what I think the Government, in their wisdom, have done on this occasion. As hon. Members know, I am not a great supporter of the Government. However, I believe that the Government are trying to get the balance right. For that reason hon. Members should give the Bill qualified support.
There are some people who, when talking about censorship, hold their hands on their hearts and pretend that it has nothing to do with commercial gain. They are not bothered about the profits that they will make from the abolition, as it were, of some form of moral censorship. My God! When I look around and think of the money which is made as a result of the excessive permissiveness which now exists in our society, such people are


hypocrites. I do not think that I am dishonest. I do not think that I am a hypocrite or a puritan. I believe that we must protect society in the way that is being suggested by the Government.

9.35 p.m.

Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies: I agree with the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer). It is probably the first time it has happened and it may well be the last time for a long period to come. But I am happy to say that the hon. Gentleman and I are at one in our approach to this matter.
It seems to me that just as we are concerned today with the pollution of the environment—with the juggernauts that make too much noise, and the smells and all the other things that are wrong in our cities—so we are concerned with visual pollution, which is the subject of the Bill, because Part II concerns itself entirely with what is a public nuisance. It will certainly be most important for the Committee to have some understanding and appreciation of the history of the matter.
Very often precedents in politics have proved of the greatest value in the modern age in arriving at the right conclusion. First, it is in law a misdemeanour to outrage public decency and morality. It is possible to put forward a straightforward prosecution alleging that a person has outraged public decency and morality and to secure conviction and a fine with no limit, or a sentence of imprisonment.
That began a couple of hundred years ago, when Sir Charles Sidley stood upon the parapet of Covent Garden, stark naked, and did make water upon the people below. The judges of the King's Bench came together and were so fed up with that behaviour that they said that it had to stop, and stop it did. Sir Charles was apprehended and was put firmly inside. From that day to this the offence has existed of outraging public decency and morality. It can be indicted at any time and it is and has been used frequently.
It was used when there was an indecent exhibition of nude women on Epsom Downs in the middle of the nineteenth century, in the case of Saunders, and it has been used on numerous occasions since. In the early part of the nineteenth century Parliament was interested in not having a lot of rogues and vagabonds

straying around the countryside, and it passed the Vagrancy Act of 1824. We are still concerned with various types of rogues and vagabonds. The section in question provided that every person who wilfully exposed to view in any street, highway, public place or in the window or any part of any establishment or other building situate in any street, highway or public place any obscene print, picture or other indecent exhibition created an offence.
That provision of as long ago as 1824 is very similar to the provisions in the Bill. In 1828 this House extended that position to cover those who offered to sell such material by saying that every person who publicly offered for sale or distribution or who exhibited to public view any profane, indecent or obscene book, paper, print, drawing, painting or representation—and here it comes—or sang any profane or obscene song or ballad, was guilty of an offence. As long ago as that it was unlawful to offer for sale or to distribute to anyone, in public, any paper or print. Such acts were considered a public nuisance and they were dealt with in this legislation because in those days a clear distinction was drawn and the commission of these acts in public was considered offensive to the public at large.
At the end of the last century the Indecent Advertisements Act of 1889 was introduced, with a £20 fine or one month's imprisonment. That covered the ground perfectly well. It said that any advertisement visible to a person in a street or the display in the window of a house or shop of any picture or printed matter which was of an indecent or obscene nature created an offence. In fact, the police have not used it.
All those three Acts still stand. When hon. Members look at the schedule they will see that the intention is to repeal those measures in whole or in part. We shall have to consider those repeals carefully. Each was probably drafted better by the parliamentary draftsmen of those days than similar provisions could be by parliamentary draftsmen of today.
Meanwhile, in 1882 we had an Act dealing with gross indecency between males. Then we come to the present century with the Obscene Publication Acts of 1959 and 1964 and the House of Lords decision in Shaw where it was held that


it was still a common law offence to conspire to corrupt public morals.
That is the background. Turning from that to the Bill, I must emphasise, first, that I am indebted to my right hon. Friend for paying tribute to the Society of Conservative Lawyers. That society considers many aspects of legislation. Over the years it has made recommendations on almost all of them, and Governments of both parties have adopted many of its recommendations. The Street Offences Act resulted from one of them. There remain many others, including the rule of law. In the present case the real purpose of the society in the first place was to focus attention on what could easily be achieved by the present Government.
I regret that, in opening, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary suggested somewhat apologetically that the country would not necessarily find these proposals wholly acceptable. My right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) also said that there would be two different lines of thought. That is simply not true. In my view 95 per cent. of the population want to see this legislation on the statute book. They do not want filth and obscene matter thrown in the face of the public any longer. That is the overwhelming opinion.
Furthermore, it is not the opinion of many of the intellectuals who oppose on a limited scale and say that people should be free to read what they like. Even they support this measure. If anyone doubts what I say let him ask Louis Blom-Cooper or John Mortimer about Part II of the Bill. They are not opposed to it, even though they have totally different views from my own.
In due course I believe that there should be a further amendment to the laws of obscenity and that they should be strengthened in certain respects. This Bill is not the vehicle for that and is not intended to be. However there is nothing in Part II of the Bill which the hon. Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Hamling) need oppose.
All that Part II seeks to say is that indecent and offensive material shall no longer be allowed to be flung in the face of the public, whether it is sent through the post in an unsolicited fashion, whether

it is written material or whether it is sound-recorded material.
Part II relates entirely to that which offends the public sense of taste. It has not been the law of this country from the 17th century to the present day that one could outrage the sensibility of the public at large without committing a criminal offence. The Bill is largely only a consolidating measure, seeking to put in simple language, and bringing up to date, the general feelings on the matter.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: The hon. Gentleman, who was the part author of a report by the Society of Conservative Lawyers, has just used the words which were part of the definition in that document, namely, that something is indecent if it is offensive to the public at large. That is not included in any definition in the Bill. Does the hon. Gentleman see any difference between the common law definition, on which the Home Secretary is relying, and his reference to the public at large'? His seems to be a somewhat tighter definition.

Mr. Rees-Davies: I am indebted to the hon. Gentleman for asking that question. I was about to deal with the matter briefly.

Mr. Bruce Douglas-Mann: The hon. Gentleman referred to the public at large. Traditionally, that test has been applied by discovering the reaction of a jury. In Clause II the maximum penalty on summary conviction is limited to three months. I am not suggesting that there should be a heavier penalty, but that has the effect that a defendant cannot have a jury trial unless the prosecution agrees. The practice in recent cases under similar legislation has been to ensure that jury trials are not granted in those circumstances. As a result, the decision will not be what is offensive to the public at large but what is offensive to a magistrate, who is, almost by definition, of a somewhat older generation than the public at large.

Mr. Rees-Davies: I believe that the points raised by the two hon. Gentlemen are the only two upon which the report of the society is not in line with what the Government have in the Bill. The Government have decided to lay down no test as to what is indecent.


We accept that, but I wish to add an amendment to make Clause 6 (1) read
If any indecent or grossly offensive matter is publicly displayed the person making the display shall be guilty of an offence.
The reason for the additional words is the desirability of ensuring that sadistic behaviour or cruel conduct, which might not be construed as indecent, comes within the ambit of the Bill.
Anybody who speaks on this subject and is in any way arrogant will soon be trodden on. It is a very difficult subject on which to be accurate. I say with due humility, and may be wrong, that in the view of a number of my colleagues and myself "indecent" goes a long way but not quite far enough in covering what is offensive to the public.
On the other matter, the trial by jury point, I quote from our pamphlet, which was called "The Pollution of the Mind". We said:
We believe that you require two necessary restrictions. As 'grossly offensive' may be differently interpreted by different people,"—
as would "indecent"—
we believe the collective view of the jury is essential in a contested case, and therefore that summary trial should be available only where a plea of guilty is entered, and otherwise the case must be sent for trial by jury.
That goes even further than election; it means not merely an accused has the right to elect for trial by jury but that the case should be sent for trial by jury.
We continued, in our second recommendation:
We advise that prosecution should only be brought with the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions or following the recommendation of a special committee appointed by the Home Secretary.
It would be easy to widen the appropriate section within the department of the Director of Public Prosecutions to enable it to consider that. The purpose of that is to get consistency throughout the country. The purpose of encouraging trial by jury is to ensure that a jury rather than a magistrate decides what is offensive to the public. Those were the recommendations. In due course I shall be delighted to hear what the Minister of State has to say about those two matters, which I am sure have had the consideration of the Home Secretary.
"What the butler saw" was one thing in the days when people could afford a butler, but now that we cannot afford a butler it has become something different It has become what a careful American expert with lustful presentation and commercially exploited material feels that he can get away with in an arcade. Of course, the pictures are filthy, particularly those which deal with sexual behaviour between animals and women. That type of display shown in the form of a still in an arcade which is available to children is intolerable. That is why we have to prevent the viewing of indecent pictures in a public place. One might use a much stronger word than "indecent", but it seems that the Bill amply covers that point.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: Is not that an obscene publication?

Mr. Rees-Davies: It might well become an obscene publication and be prosecuted under that heading or under the general common law, on the ground that it sought to deprave and corrupt those who were likely to look at it. These machines, which are available in public places, seem to be covered by the Bill and it is reasonable and logical that they should be.
Hon. Members will remember the Julian Press, which caused our constituents such a lot of trouble. I realised when I read it that the material that had been sent was not pornographic but merely titillating—it encouraged one to buy something which probably was pornographic.
Clause 10(b) deals with unsolicited advertising. It provides that any person who
(b) advertises any article in a way likely to be taken as indicating that the article consists of or contains indecent matter;
shall be guilty of an offence.
The term of imprisonment under Clause 11(a) should be four or six months. That at least would enable an election for trial by jury.
We recommended that the 24-hour film clubs should be stopped. They should be brought under the umbrella of the Cinematograph Acts. Why should small clubs be allowed to operate at which members of the public on the day on


which they join can see a film which is a bit dirtier than an X or XX film? It seems right to include them. I am sure that we need not offend or make it more expensive for the Film Institute. I expect that it can get exemption, and I invite the Minister of State to deal with the Film Institute when he winds up.
I believe that it is right for the Bill to deal with films. The country wants us to deal with them. Unfortunately, we are unable to deal with the test for deciding whether a film should be passed. The film censor decides that entirely on his own judgment, but the GLC does not. The GLC is still using the old test of whether the film tends to deprave and corrupt. That is too stiff a test to be used today in judging what should be shown to the public.
My right hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General and I went together to see some films at the invitation of the Greater London Council. We came to the conclusion that they were films which we would not have accepted and would not have passed. Indeed, we found that the committee did not want to pass them but felt obliged to do so because of the Hicklin precedent, by which they felt bound in terms of the definition whether a film intended to deprave and corrupt. I felt that if the committee had been free to decide of its own volition on the films shown to it many films would not have been passed. I hope that we can reverse the policy and allow the committee to say what it believes to be right so that it does not feel bound by the Hicklin test.

9.56 p.m.

Mr. William Hamling: It would appear that a few hon. Members wish to extend the Bill and make its provisions even stronger than they are at present. I believe that the right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) said that he would like the Bill to apply to television.

Mr. Deedes: Let me make clear that I said I wanted to see more clarification of television later on.

Mr. Hamling: I take the right hon. Gentleman's point. The hon. Member for Banff (Mr. W. H. K. Baker) was certainly concerned to see television brought

within the ambit of the Bill and thought the Bill did not go far enough.
The hon. Member for Hertfordshire, South-West (Sir Gilbert Longden)—whom I congratulate on being the first back bencher to have a Private Member's Bill accepted by a Government without asking—mentioned the film "Clockwork Orange" which he thought should not be shown. I did not see the film, but I read the book and did not like it. I had no wish to see the film.
The hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) would like the Bill to go a little further, although some of the changes he would like to see would be, from the point of view of some of the Bill's opponents, an improvement rather than bring about any worsening of the situation. Having listened to the hon. Gentleman, I began to wonder whether rugby songs sung in public places would come within the ambit of the Bill. Quite a few of us have sung barrack-room ballads of one sort and another, and they could well come within the clause relating to rude noises. Clause 8 would appear to cover the situation of a song broadcast over a microphone or, indeed, accidentally sung over a microphone. I do not know how those provisions would affect that sort of situation.
I wonder why the Government feel such urgency to be necessary in introducing this Bill at this stage of the Session. It appears to show a strange sense of priorities when there are so many other important matters which affect the nation. The Government often talk of a housing Bill but we have not seen that yet. When we have so many grave problems to consider, why are the Government introducing this Bill when there are so many existing provisions to cover the evils of which they speak?
I believe that this Bill might have been much more appropriate had it been introduced as a Private Member's Bill rather than as a Government measure—a measure introduced by the Government with all the panoply of support from the Treasury Bench and with all that that implies in attendance at this late hour of the evening.
I wondered about the political reasons for the Bill being introduced until I read the accounts of the Conservative Party conference and realised that the Government were very concerned—

It being Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.

Orders of the Day — BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,
That Government business may be proceeded with at this day's Sitting, though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr. Gray.]

Orders of the Day — CINEMATOGRAPH AND INDECENT DISPLAYS BILL

Question again proposed, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Mr. Hamling: —to maintain what little grass roots support they still had in the constituencies. [Laughter.] The occupants of the Government Front Bench may laugh, but if they had announced a week ago what they announced in the House of Commons today I wonder what would have happened last Thursday.
The Bill make no attempt to deal with pornography or indecency. It is simply concerned with display. To that extent it is very limited, and a great deal of what has been said is irrelevant. We are simply concerned with hiding and covering up pornography and indecency. This is another Watergate Bill rather like the Street Offences Act, which set out not to abolish prostitution but simply to hide it. It was swept under the carpet. The Home Secretary tried to anticipate that argument, but singularly failed to be convincing about it.
The Street Offences Act did not abolish vice. Indeed, it may have increased it. Today prostitution is an important part of the big criminal operations in the City of London and perhaps other cities throughout the country. It is part and parcel of the big protection rackets. To that extent, that form of vice, which was swept under the carpet by that Act, is probably more dangerous now than before the Act came into operation.
I suggest that, in so far as the Bill seeks to sweep away or cover up certain social evils, it may make the production and sale of dirty books, the holding of indecent exhibitions and the showing of blue films even more an operation of big criminal rackets than they have been so far.
But the children will not see it. This seems to satisfy and comfort the Govern-

ment, even though the vice and the social evils go on more apace than hitherto.

Mr. Rees-Davies: Surely the hon. Gentleman is in the camp that believes that hard porn should be allowed; that is, that whatever a person reads in his own home should not be the subject of a prosecution. I thought he was in that lobby. Is that wrong?

Mr. Hamling: If the hon. Gentleman will listen to my speech as it unfolds, perhaps at the end of the day he will be enlightened. He knows as well as any other hon. Member that I have always maintained that the more repression there is—this is a repressive Bill—the more we seek to hide, to conceal, and to suppress, the more the evil grows.

Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles: Nonsense.

Mr. Hamling: It is all right saying "Nonsense". I am answering the particular question posed by the hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet. I have made that point in previous debates, and that is the object of the Bill. In my view, the provisions in the Bill will not destroy the vice, the evils of dirty books and the pornography. They are not intended to do that. They will only conceal them. If that satisfies the hon. Gentleman, so be it. It does not satisfy me, and I am sure that it does not satisfy many right hon. and hon. Members.
I do not like many of the things that I see in the House. There are many things which are grossly offensive to me—the Government for a kick off. All their policies are grossly offensive to me, and if we were to import that into an Act of Parliament, Heath would be behind bars quicker than anyone else. But the hon. Gentleman knows that that is not the intention. Only certain things are grossly offensive in his nostrils, but many things in this House are much more offensive to us than pictures of nude women. The plight of starving children and homeless people is much more grossly offensive, but that is not covered by the Bill. Their suffering is grossly offensive, and if the Government were doing their job they would be doing something about that.
Many things are offensive to me, but I have grave doubts about whether the Bill will deal with the evils with which it sets out to deal. We enact statutes, but they do


not stop the evils which they set out to stop. Having looked at the Bill, and having heard all the debate with the exception of the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Accrington (Mr. Arthur Davidson)—I knew what my hon. Friend was going to say anyway—I cannot understand the Home Secretary's claim that the Bill does not extend censorship, particularly when one considers Part I.
The right hon. Gentleman's attention to Part I was of a most cursory nature. I understand that the Minister of State may deal with this in winding up the debate, but it is grossly unfair to the House—and grossly offensive to the House, if I may coin a phrase—to introduce a Bill which will make an important change in the law relating to films and not explain it to the House. That is the purpose of the Secretary of State's first speech in a debate such as this—to tell the House what the Bill says and what it means.
The right hon. Gentleman's attention to Clause 3 was non-existent. During most of the debate Part I of the Bill has been treated in a most cursory and unsatisfactory way, and I hope that the Minister will deal with it in winding up, particularly in view of the representations that have been made by film societies. I am sure that the Minister has received the kind of communications which I and others have been sent.
The hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet referred to the GLC. Most cinema clubs are in London. For a long time the GLC has been unhappy about the position with regard to films. It asked the Government to undertake an inquiry into film censorship, but the Government refused to do so. That is my information. The GLC then went on with its own inquiry and, in particular, undertook a survey of public attitudes towards film censorship.
In the summer of this year the Home Office sent out a circular containing certain suggestions about what might be in some projected legislation such as that which is now before the House. The GLC refused to comment because it was busy with its own inquiries. The only proposal that the GLC welcomed was the proposal to strengthen the fire regulations. For the rest, the GLC said nothing.
In the light of the representations that were or were not made, it seems astonishing that the Government should proceed with Part I of the Bill after such inadequate preparation. I hope that in Committee we shall look very carefully at Clause 3 and the other clauses of Part I.
I come now to Part II and particularly to the definitions. It has been suggested that we might strengthen the definition part of the Bill, or that we should insert a definition by adding the words "grossly offensive" to cover such things as cruelty, sadistic behaviour, and so on. I am not sure that that would work, because the term "indecent matter" is not defined and the Government have no intention of inserting such a definition in the Bill. It is not true that the phrase "indecent matter" has not been defined. It has been defined in the courts. The Minister will be the first to admit that. The Home Secretary said that he could not define what indecent matter was. He said that it varied from area to area and that he would prefer to leave it that way. But the comments of one of his hon. Friends on that matter were very firm and quite contrary to what the Home Secretary said.

Mr. Rees-Davies: What is the hon. Gentleman's view?

Mr. Hamling: I am about to give that. If we are to have a situation where what is legal in London is illegal in Carlisle, this will make the law an even bigger ass than it is now. We have the definition in the case referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for York (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon). But the judgment in the case of Regina v. Stanley was not quoted. In that case Lord Chief Justice Parker said that he defined indecent material as something that offends the ordinary modesty of the average man—whoever the average man may be. Presumably, in the words of the hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet, we need a jury to decide what an average man is and what he thinks. I am not sure about that. Lord Chief Justice Parker went on to say that it offended against the recognised standards of propriety.
This sort of definition is so loose and meaningless as not to be worth much consideration in the Bill. It reveals how extraordinarily wide the net is cast by


"indecent material". It may be something that offends against the recognised standards of propriety and something which is grossly offensive to the public at large. These are not phrases which give much comfort to anyone who wants precision from the law. Surely, if we are to codify the law, as is the purpose of the Bill, we need much tighter definitions than we have had so far. What about violence? What about war films, and films of Nazi concentration camps? Are these covered? Are they grossly offensive to the public at large? Who knows?
What is the meaning of "display" in the Bill? It seems that what we shall have as a result is not perhaps fewer shops which sell dirty books, but more. There may, as a consequence, be a temptation for bookshops in the suburbs to open a little back room, perhaps charging for entry, and to extend the compass of the books which they offer for sale. It seems to me that that is not to improve the situation but to make it worse.
What about seaside postcards, such as have been on sale in Southport, Blackpool and other places from time immemorial? They are vulgar, but do they outrage propriety? Are they grossly offensive? They may be offensive to some people. They make the hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet laugh, but he is not an average man; he is a very peculiar man. The average man may well be offended, and I can well imagine that some of the people who are trying to "clean up our public life" would be highly offended by some of these vulgar postcards. But I am sure that they do not do anyone any harm, although I was going to remark that the Women's Lib movement might be offended by some of them, which portray these very stout ladies. But I am certain that these postcards will be covered by the Bill, and that newsagents' shops in New Brighton and other places will be guilty of an offence. That seems to be taking a steamroller to crush a peanut, not a sledgehammer to crack a nut. What are the contemporary standards of public decency? We do not know. They are what any little magistrates' court in some obscure part of England decides they are on a certain occasion, and I am certain that it is not the duty of this House to

pass laws of such a broad and sweeping nature as that.
We must certainly have a defence and trial by jury, but this Bill is very carefully drawn. Some of my friends outside the House have said that this is a sloppy Bill, but I do not believe it. It is my view that this Bill was very carefully drawn so as not to permit the defence to elect for trial by jury. There is no defence of artistic merit or of public good. These are not to be found in the Bill, and it seems to me that the defence would be at a very severe disadvantage.
Some very reputable authorities might come within the ambit of this Bill. I refer to Clause 6(3) which states:
Nothing in this section applies in relation to any matter included in a television broadcast or in the display of any art gallery or museum which is provided by the Crown, any public or local authority",
and so on. What about private art galleries? I can think of many very reputable private art galleries in London, in New Bond Street and elsewhere, which might, as a result of somebody laying information or bringing a private prosecution, be prosecuted for having a Rubens' nude in the window or elsewhere where the public could see it. There is nothing in this Bill which would prevent an occurrence of that sort.

Mr. Robert Cooke: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman did not hear what my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said in reply to my intervention on this very point. I think that my right hon. Friend has taken this point on board.

Mr. Hamling: I heard it extremely well, and I noted the reply. But, as I said earlier, the Home Office has drafted this Bill very carefully. I doubt whether the Home Office is so sloppy that it does not know what is in the Bill. It shows the difficulties that arise once we venture into this field.
Clause 8 provides:
(1) If any person produces by any means of sound reproduction or amplification indecent sounds (whether or not consisting of words) which are audible in a place to which the public have or are permitted to have access, whether on payment or otherwise, he shall be guilty of an offence …
That could apply to the live theatre which nowadays uses mechanical sound amplification systems. Words which some might interpret as being grossly offensive


could, if spoken from the stage of a theatre in London or elsewhere in the country, come within the ambit of Clause 8. At the National Theatre and elsewhere plays and musicals are put on by reputable managements, and words and expressions which some people may regard as rude are amplified. There is nothing in the Bill to prevent a private prosecution of a theatre company in such a case.
The House must take seriously some of the provisions in the Bill and understand that these provisions are not as marginal as we have been led to believe.
Clause 9 provides:
Where any article is advertised as being for sale or hire in any place and—

(a) the place is one to which the public have or are permitted to have access, whether on payment or otherwise; and
(b) the advertisement is likely to be taken as indicating that the article consists of or contains indecent matter".

I believe that Penguin Books has published a book called "Sexual Deviations". I have not read the book. I am a bit old for that sort of thing, and I am rather past it. Some people who saw advertisements for a book such as that might well think that the book contained matter which was indecent. Is Penguin Books to think twice before putting advertisements in bookshops and elsewhere?
It has been said that it is not only pictures but words. I think of somebody advertising the play "'Tis Pity She's a Whore". Some people may not understand that that is a Restoration comedy and may think it is a highly indecent play. Perhaps in some people's minds "'Tis Pity She's a Whore" is highly

indecent. However, artistic standards differ.
Many reputable books come within the purview of the Bill. Many reputable publishers come within the purview of Clause 9, and even more of Clause 10, which could perfectly well have been left to the Privacy Bill, provides:
If any person sends or delivers to another any article which he knows or ought reasonably to know to be unsolicited and which either—

(a) consists of or contains any indecent matter; or
(b) advertises any article in a way likely to be taken as indicating that the article consists of or contains indecent matter;

he shall be guilty of an offence.
Will publishers' circulars fall within that? I think of a publisher publishing a sex manual and many other books that appear in publishers' lists. Will they all be covered by the Bill?
It may be said that I am raising a succession of Committee points. I am not. I am drawing attention to a succession of bad clauses in the Bill. One clause after another, in my view, is wholly unnecessary, thoroughly bad and thoroughly misleading. If those clauses are taken out, what is left of the Bill? One is left with Part I, which, as I have said, has not been explained by the Home Secretary, has not been justified by the Home Secretary, and has not been justified by any other hon. Member in the debate.
Bearing in mind the grave drafting weaknesses in the Bill, the serious difficulties of interpretation and the threats which it will present to reputable publishers, reputable art galleries and others of great reputation in the arts, we ought to think carefully before we make fools of ourselves by passing the Bill.

10.26 p.m.

Mr. Ian Percival: I am glad to have the opportunity to comment at once on the speech of the hon. Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Hamling). It will be no surprise to him or the House to learn that I disagree with almost everything that he said, and I am happy now to be able to express a contrary view on some of it.
The hon. Gentleman started by saying that the Government showed a strange sense of priorities in promoting this Bill so early in the Session. How wrong can one he? The degree of permissiveness which has been indulged in by some, encouraged by some and tolerated in the name of freedom by the rest of society has reached a point at which it is damaging to our society. I strongly agreed with the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) when he said that. What is more, it has now reached a stage when it will no longer be tolerated by the silent majority. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) when he expresses the conviction that 95 per cent. of the people of this country will welcome the Bill.
The Bill is long overdue. The British people have been waiting to see some cleaning up done, and I, for one, am greatly obliged to the Government for setting about it and doing it so early in the Session. I hope that they will get on with it. I hope that their intention both to do something useful and to do it speedily will not be frustrated by a lot of niggling technical points such as have been forecast in some of the speeches today.
I agree with the hon. Member for Walton also in what he said about the importance of the family unit, and I believe that most people share that view. Nothing is more important. I agree with what he said about the need to protect children, too, but we are dealing here not only with children. What we have to put up with now, and have had to put up with for quite a long time, offends people of all ages. It offends because it is dirty. It soils our society just as much as any other kind of dirt does. I am astonished at the way in which so many of the people who talk about improving the quality of life cannot see that, far from doing anything to contribute to the quality of life, what we are here trying to stop detracts from

the quality of life just as much as any other kind of dirt and dirtiness does.
Society is entitled to be protected from the damaging consequences of the indulgences of the minority. For long enough they have imposed their concepts upon the rest of us. For long enough they have enjoyed the tolerance of the majority of society. It is now high time that they showed some tolerance of and respect for the wishes of the majority.
I for one have not the slightest doubt that what the Government are attempting to do is for the good of society. I am sure that the majority of society will appreciate that and wish the Government well in their endeavours. I hope that the Bill will receive an overwhelming majority on Second Reading.

10.30 p.m.

Mr. A. E. P. Duffy: Few hon. Members will quarrel with the contention which the hon. and learned Member for Southport (Mr. Percival) has put forward—namely, that the public welcomes the Bill. I doubt whether any hon. Member would quarrel with the Secretary of State for the Home Department's contention when introducing the Bill—namely, that the public is looking to the Government, as it is entitled to do, for protection from offensive material being foisted upon it. My quarrel with the Bill is not so much for what it contains but for what it does not contain.
I hope to deploy an argument which I should not be allowed to put forward in Committee. It is an argument on behalf of an important group which has to handle much of the material with which we are concerned—namely, newsagents. Some hon. Members will think that they do not have to handle such material, but I hope to show that most of them do not have much choice. It is difficult for them to set themselves up as censors.
I have a family involvement. My brother-in-law distributes 10,000 to 12,000 newspapers a week. He is highly literate and was almost as fond of newspapers as I am before he undertook his present business some years ago. He says that now he never has time to read the newspapers. I understand that that is generally the position for those who are in the trade.
I hope that the House will understand my anxiety about this matter and will allow me to express myself on behalf of the trade and of the National Federation of Retail Newsagents. Like many hon. Members, I have been expecting such a measure ever since the Longford Report. I have been looking with anxiety for such a measure. But this is not the Bill which I and other hon. Members wanted. It does not help the trade in the situation in which it has found itself since the Longford Report. Since the report, police forces and notably the Birmingham, Norwich, Manchester and Burnley forces, have been raiding newsagents' premises. As a result, some newsagents have found themselves in court. They have been fined for selling publications that thousands of other retailers in other parts of the country have been selling.
My quarrel with the Bill is that it does not help newsagents to tackle the problem and does nothing to protect them. It leaves them in exactly the same position as under previous legislation. What is the position in which the Bill leaves them? A newsagent faces two alternatives when he is raided, he either submits to a destruction order without trial and loses all the stock which has been seized, or he attempts to defend himself, and if he takes that course he can finish up with costs which can put him out of business.
Recently a newsagent in the Midlands was rash enough to attempt such a defence. It cost him over £8,000. It is the contention of the National Federation of Retail Newsagents that if a member of its organisation purchases stock through a reputable wholesaler supplier such as W. H. Smith and Son Ltd.—most members must be aware of the policy and reputation of W. H. Smith in these matters—it is reasonable for him to assume that the stock is suitable for retail display and sale. If a publication is found to be offensive, the federation believes that any court action should be taken against the publisher.
It has been the experience of newsagents that the police, when making raids, enter their shops with a list, the contents of which are never disclosed. Therefore, newsagents have no idea for what the police are looking. Some of the

titles seized have already been successfully defended in the High Court by the publishers. In many instances stock is seized and held by the police for many weeks, and even if it is eventually returned it is out of date and no longer saleable. The cost is borne entirely by the small retailer. In most cases titles seized are readily obtainable from most other distributors as well as newsagents in the country.

Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson: Under what law do the police raid premises in these terms?

Mr. Duffy: Under existing legislation, very simply, and I shall say a word about that.
Having given the broad picture, may I now mention a particular case which appeared in the Sunday Times this week? This does not affect a retailer whom hon. Members suspect to be located down a sidestreet, who is careless about his standards, is prepared to take a chance and go in for something which might be scarcely distinguishable from porn. This case concerns a wholesaler in Bath from whom just over a week ago police confiscated over 9,000 magazines, including The Times Literary Supplement, the Angling Times, the Exchange and Mart and Railway Modeller. That is an indication of the seriousness of the situation.
Also seized and returned two days later by the police were Commando, the Bookseller, Titbits, the Spectator, Sporting Record, Small Boat, Dalton's Weekly, Rolling Stone, Camping and Caravan, Weekly News, She, Reveille, Weekend, Date, Look-In and Autosport.
Twenty-four policemen were involved. They pulled up outside the premises in Bath with three Land Rovers. The premises belong to Johnsons, and the chief executive, Mr. Pearce, said he was flabbergasted by the raid. He said that the firm had been established in Bath for 87 years and had never had any problems before. Mr. Pearce's relations with the police had been very good up to now. He is on the Bath Crime Prevention Panel, which discusses crime in the city and which is organised by the police. Recently he was worried that such a contingency might arise many in the trade have experienced similar worries—and he approached the head of the


Bath police, Chief Superintendent George Matthews. He asked to be told if people complained about any publications that were on sale. The Home Secretary said this afternoon that he did not feel it was necessary to give the police any guidance. Will the Minister bear that in mind when he replies? Does he not feel that the situation I have described calls for a comment from him?
Two days ago the Sunday Times in a news item said that two of the magazines that were seized were cleared on all counts only seven months ago by an Old Bailey jury. Another magazine seized is produced by an editor who was also cleared at the Old Bailey in February. The Sunday Times reports:
… a spokesman for the Defence of Literature and the Arts Society says: 'Juries at the Old Bailey will acquit publishers but when a newsagent comes up against the prejudices of a magistrate on a seizure order, he has no chance.'
Hon. Members will understand the trepidation with which that news item was read by many newsagents in the country, as I have had reason to discover in the past 24 hours.
The other major criticism of the National Federation of Retail Newsagents is that the Bill gives no guidance to the trade. There is no definition, for example, of indecency, nor does it repeal the Obscene Publications Act, which deals with a number of other indefinables, including those described by the hon. Member for Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees Davies). It will be understood why newsagents feel that they will continue to be liable to seizures, despite the passage of the Bill. As The Guardian warns this morning,
Respectable newsagents and booksellers will be vulnerable to prosecutions by well-heeled vigilantes bent on courtroom crusades against the permissive society.
Against such people, the newsagent will have no remedy.
I remind hon. Members of what I said earlier about the physical impossibility of processing or censoring the vast amount of literature which flows into the premises of the average newsagent each day. Literature arrives from the wholesaler in bundles, some with the morning newspapers, and more with the evening newspapers. It is quite impossible for a newsagent to step back from his busi-

ness and scrutinise what is coming into his shop at what is probably his busiest time of the day.
This legislation will only confirm in the mind of the newsagent that he bears a terrible load, and lengthy terms of imprisonment and hefty fines may await him. But they do not await the publishers of books or magazine covers.
The Bill does not attempt to define what is indecent. I understand the difficulties. As the hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet said, it may be that this could not be done at the present time. But until it is done it will be decided by the personal opinions of ordinary people, magistrates and juries who, like us all, must have their own moral prejudices.
The Bill employs standards so vague and arbitrary that no citizen, not merely the newsagent, can know before a court has found him guilty whether he has committed an offence.

10.44 p.m.

Mr. Michael Shersby: A good deal has been said about Part II of the Bill, and I listened with considerable interest to the speech by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Duffy), which illustrated some of the difficulties which may occur.
I support the general aims of the Bill, as they have been described by my right hon. Friend, to stop undesirable and offensive matter being thrust at the public. I welcome that clause which deals with the prohibition of unsolicited matter which is sent through the mail and which gives such offence to old people and to parents whose young children see their mail.
But the part of the Bill that particularly concerns me is Part I, which relates to the exhibition of cinematograph films by reputable film societies, such as the British Films Institute and the British Federation of Film Societies. Not much has been said about Part I tonight. I want to draw attention to some of the difficulties that may result if the Bill is enacted in its present form.
Whilst I support the control of cinematograph exhibition promoted for private gain, I am concerned that the exercise of that control where it is concerned with payment for admission or the


advertising of film shows will adversely affect the many excellent film societies which operate with the benefit of public funds. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has already referred to the anxiety expressed by the film societies. I should like to amplify that anxiety.
Clause 3, which deals with the restriction on advertisements of exempted cinematograph exhibitions, is particularly difficult to follow, and may be regarded as somewhat ambiguous. Bona fide film societies are not allowed to charge at the door. Their members pay annual subscriptions in the normal way. However, guest tickets may be obtained, and they are usually obtained before shows. But if a society advertised the availability of guest tickets for a modest charge it might be in considerable difficulty under the clause.
The British Federation of Film Societies is anxious to extend the scope of its activities by opening them more widely to all sections of the community, which hon. Members will agree is a laudable ambition. But the societies will want to advertise their shows, to make the public aware that they can show films on subjects dealing with the environment, for example, and other types of pollution than that which has been referred to in the debate. If they cannot advertise those shows freely, the restriction will severely hamper their activities.
The exclusions referred to in Clause 3 are not satisfactory, because it is left to the individual local authority to decide whether a performance is exempt. Moreover, under the clause a film society would have to submit advertising to the local authority at least 21 days before a show if the exemption were not in force. The mind boggles at the administrative machinery involved in obtaining from a local authority a relatively simple approval for a specific show which is to be advertised and at which an admission fee is taken, which will add considerably to the expenses of the societies.
The very nature of some of the films which are shown to the public and are advertised precludes the satisfactory use of that machinery, because, if for no other reason, it will take far too long to operate. For example, a prize-winning film at a festival must be shown quickly

while there is still public interest in its success. Often foreign films must be returned to their producers or distributors within two or three weeks of their arrival in this country. There is often little advance notice that a film is available for screening.
But most important of all, in Clause 3 there are no criteria as to what should or should not be permitted by way of advertising a show. How, then, are local authorities to know how to judge whether an advertisement is acceptable? I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will be able to give me an assurance that that point will be considered, and that local authorities will not be entitled simply to ban an advertisement completely but will at least first have to seek a rapid modification of any offending matter.
Then there are the weekend schools of the kind that have been organised by such reputable establishments as the Hull Polytechnic and the British Federation of Film Societies, where sometimes recent continental films are shown which are not indecent but are simply of a contentious nature and are seen by people who are interested in the art of the film in its broadest sense.
In neither of these cases will it be easier to obtain approval for appropriate advertising if the Bill becomes law without criteria being laid down to guide local authorities. We should, in other words, avoid setting up machinery which results in local authorities acting as censors of advertising for bona fide film shows.
Existing film shows organised by reputable film societies will now be subject to the Obscene Publications Act. This could impose severe and possibly unnecessary restrictions on the film societies' activities. I assume that the desire to involve the Obscene Publications Act results entirely from a wish to prevent advertising by cinemas which exhibit major certificated films designed to exploit sex for commercial reasons.
I cannot do better than quote from the current issue of Campaign, a well-known and respected publication concerned with public relations, which comments on the debate in another place:
Lord Longford said that no one could be unaware of the large enticements at some cinemas in prominent places. In the Strand at the corner of Trafalgar Square one was asked in


huge letters: "Do you want to remain a virgin for ever?'
Surely, the way to avoid this predicament is to exclude from the provisions of Clause 3 all those organisations which receive grants from public funds; for example, the British Film Institute and the British Federation of Film Societies. These bodies are not the offending parties, because they exercise their own form of control which is much respected by the institutes, their members and the public.
I quote briefly from a letter which appeared in the last edition of the Sunday Times written by the late Secretary of the British Board of Film Censors, Mr. John Trevelyan, whose opinion of film censorship affairs is much respected throughout the country:
Strip-clubs will presumably he free to continue as at present, provided that their advertising is respectable. But cinema-clubs will be controlled by the local authorities, who may refuse licences or attach conditions to them.
Finally, I want to raise the question: what will happen in the case of a public meeting for which the public pay an admission charge where closed circuit television is used in an adjacent hall for an overflow meeting? Will such advertising have to be approved by the local authority?
I am sorry if I have brought in what may be considered to be Committee points. I did not wish to get too technical, but I wanted to mention the grave fears expressed by people involved in running these excellent film societies which are in receipt of public funds. Their position should be taken account of, and I hope the comments I have made will be considered in Committee.

10.54 p.m.

Mr. Hugh Jenkins: My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Duffy) showed that the Bill was dangerous from the point of view of the retail newsagent. The hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) showed that it was dangerous from the point of view of people who are interested in the art of the film, such as the British Film Institute and the British Federation of Film Societies. Whom, then, is the Bill for, if the people who are chiefly engaged in the main areas which the Bill affects are opposed to it, frightened of it and feel that it is unnecessary? The Bill is for public prejudice, just as the

Industrial Relations Bill was for public prejudice.
This Bill has a great deal in common with the Industrial Relations Bill. It meets a flow of feeling that there is something wrong, just as the Industrial Relations Bill met a flow of feeling against the trade union movement. The Opposition felt that the effects of the Industrial Relations Bill would be very different from the effect expected by the Government's supporters.

Mr. Hamling: They had not read it.

Mr. Jenkins: Of course they had read it. Nor should we do my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) the injustice of suggesting that he has not read this Bill. Of course, having read the Industrial Relations Bill hon. Members opposite still did not know what the consequences would be when it became an Act.
My hon. Friend the Member for Walton is an honest man. He has read this Bill and says that he believes that his constituents will like it. He believes that there is an evil and that the Bill will do something about it. He, of course, knew what the consequences of the Industrial Relations Bill would be because he is a trade unionist and knew what he was talking about, and I can assure him that the people who know something about this subject know that the outcome of this Bill will be the same as that of the Industrial Relations Act.
The public liked the Industrial Relations Bill but dislike it as an Act. The public will probably dislike this Bill when it becomes an Act as much as they dislike the Industrial Relations Act, for then they will discover just what it means, just as they came to realise just what the Industrial Relations Act meant.
My hon. Friend the Member for Attercliffe has described some of the consequences likely to be suffered by the newsagents; the hon. Member for Uxbridge has described some of the consequences likely to be suffered by the film societies and the British Film Institute. The film societies ask—and this is the hallmark of a Bill motivated by prejudice—what is the evil which the Bill seeks to cure?
Apparently, the object of the exercise is the commercial film clubs. They are


supposed to be caught by the Bill. But they will not be caught. They are most careful in their advertising. It is not the commercial film clubs which spread the West End with these posters which so offend Lord Longford. It is the commercial licensed film which is advertised in these blatant terms—and the people are sold a pup because, once inside, they find that the film is not half as salacious as the poster outside advertising it.

Mr. Hamling: Is not that typical of capitalism?

Mr. Jenkins: That point has escaped some of my hon. Friends. I am glad that at least my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Hamling) has seen it.

Mr. Heffer: Would not my hon. Friend agree that whether the film is more or less salacious than the customers expected is irrelevant to the point? The point is that it is the posters on display outside that are the offence. One does not know what the film is going to be like inside, but it is the display outside which people are objecting to. Certainly, a majority of my constituents object to it. One tries to represent the views of one's constituents in this House, and on this occasion the views of my constituents are 100 per cent. my views as well.

Mr. Jenkins: I am delighted to hear that this is the case with my hon. Friend the Member for Walton. I shall come to that point later. The point I am making now—and I am not defending salacious advertising if one of the consequence of the Bill is that it is modified or goes—is that the type of show supposed to be caught by the Bill is not the type of cinema which is indulging in the salacious advertising my hon. Friend objects to.
There is another point which has escaped attention. It has been mentioned by the British Film Institute. The institute foresees financial difficulties arising from the necessity to obtain local authority sanction, which it will have to obtain in future, for the showing of its films outside London. The Film Institute also mentions the possibility of a political censorship being exercised on films shown under its aegis. These are some of the matters which give

rise to grave doubts about the Bill. I should like to quote what was said on this point by a distinguished director, Mr. Carl Foreman:
What does concern me is the possibility of heavier censorship, which I find depressing. I have always felt that if there had to be film censorship, then the British variety was the best of all.
The Home Secretary said today that it was not a censorship measure. But the consequences of the Bill will have a repressive and alarming effect on some sections of the community, such as newsagents and film societies. It would appear that the Bill has been introduced without enough thought having been given to its ultimate consequences.
We see in Part II of the Bill:
For the purpose of this section, any matter shall be deemed to be publicly displayed if it is in, or is visible from, any place to which, at the time it is displayed, the public have or are permitted to have access, whether on payment or otherwise …".
In effect, what the Bill is saying is that if a person goes into a place, having paid, expecting to see an indecent display, it is all right so long as it is not mentioned outside. But if he goes into a place not expecting to see an indecent display but an indecent display occurs, there can be trouble.
It is obvious that this matter needs a good deal of examination in Committee. It seems to me that the consequence is that it is likely that a strip club will not get caught under the Bill. But it would appear likely that a play shown in the National Theatre or any other reputable theatre could be caught by Clause 6(2)(a). I refer, for example, to the production of "Heloise and Abelard", part of which includes incidental nudity.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Mark Carlisle): The hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Hugh Jenkins) says that this is an important matter, and I agree with him. But can he show me anywhere in the Bill reference to theatres or cinemas where one pays to go in to see a performance?

Mr. Jenkins: Yes. For example, I refer to Clause 6(2) and Clause 8(1):
If any person produces by any means of sound reproduction or amplification indecent sounds … which are audible in a place to which the public have or are permitted to have access"—


that could be a theatre—
whether on payment or otherwise, he shall be guilty of an offence.
If the Minister of State is saying that this is not the intention of the Bill, no doubt he will accept in Committee an amendment to exclude what seems to me to be the reintroduction of censorship into the theatre by the back door by means of Clauses 6 and 8.
I do not intend to take up a great deal of time, and I propose to end by saying this. I believe that this is a thoroughly bad Bill. One or two of its clauses if tidied up would be worthy of support. I refer, for example, to Clause 10, which refers to unsolicited articles containing indecent advertising matter sent through the post.
I agree with the right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes), who said that we were likely to have a long Committee stage. I feel that we should throw out every clause except Clause 10.

Mr. Deedes: Will the hon. Gentleman answer a question which so far he has evaded? Does he accept as offensive certain displays such as one sees at the moment in Soho and in other parts of London?

Mr. Jenkins: I accept that some may be offensive to some people and ought to be dealt with, but I am saying that the Bill does not do the job carefully and goes far beyond that.

11.5 p.m.

Mr. Edward Gardner: I was surprised to hear the hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Hugh Jenkins) describe the Bill as being motivated by prejudice, particularly as its source of inspiration is a Home Secretary who, I think, is less tainted by prejudice than anyone could imagine.
The Bill is inevitably something of a compromise, and my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary made it clear that he intended to try to steer a middle course.
The hon. Member for Putney seemed to demonstrate, if demonstration be needed, that we shall have criticism from both extreme views about the nature of the Bill and its capacity to deal with the mischief at which it is aimed. Inevitably, it will not satisfy those who

wish to put an end to hard pornography, nor will it please those who believe that pornography, indecent display, and obscene publications can be looked at and listened to without any harm to the public. However, I believe that most people will see the Bill as some hope of protection against what it calls "indecent matter"; that is, the advertisements that appear on hoardings, the posters we see in the underground, and the indications, by way of photographs and in other ways, that appear outside cinemas and theatres.
The Bill is an excellent demonstration of the art of the possible. All attempts by the common law during the nineteenth century and later by statute to define obscenity have failed. The Obscene Publications Act 1959 has, in effect, been a lamentable failure. By defining obscenity it has created almost insuperable difficulties for the prosecution in some cases and has added a defence which has brought an artificiality to the courts in certain cases dealing with obscenity that is quite intolable. The 1959 Act has made it possible for the defence to adduce evidence by an expert—literary, artistic or scientific—in a way that can satisfy the court, and has done so in many cases, that the obscene publication is justified as being for the public good. In many cases—I do not want to specify them, certainly at this hour—that has made the law look very foolish. That kind of defence and that Act have made it possible for the most degenerate, damaging and corrupting of obscene publications to escape conviction.
In this Bill the essence of the law will be the word "indecent". No attempt is made in Part II to define "indecent". The hon. Member for Accrington (Mr. Arthur Davidson) said that he would like a definition of "indecent". It is a good, plain, well understood word that has a long legislative history. Going back through the statutes of the nineteenth century, which were aimed at the kind of offences with which we are concerned now, time and again the word "indecent" appears without any definition at all. The difficulty arises when one comes to define words of this kind, when one tries to provide a definition of, for example, obscenity, that will make sense in a court. It is almost an impossible thing to do.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) spoke of pornography as a growth industry. I think that few right hon. and hon. Members would not agree that there are some people who have a voracious and insatiable appetite for this kind of material. I remember once being a member of a committee which was considering the law of obscenity. We were discussing a film which was then showing in London. I shall not give its name, nor shall I give a free advertisement to the cinema which was showing it, but we all said that it was clearly pornographic and ought not to be shown in a cinema and open to the public. Then we discovered that no one on the committee had seen the film, and I was told that I had better go off and see what it was all about.
I think that the worst part of the experience was buying the ticket. The box office opened on to a main thoroughfare, and I felt that I ought not to have left behind my soiled raincoat and dark glasses. However, I got a ticket and went in. It was a Swedish film, and it was nothing more than a moving medical dictionary.
About half-way through the film there was an interval. The lights went up, and ice-creams were sold. There were two men ahead of me, and the moment the lights went up I noticed that they were reading something. Both of them were obviously intent on what they were doing. Impertinently, I looked over their shoulders and discovered that they were reading an obscene magazine—during the interval of this film! I thought that that was about the best illustration and the best experience that I had ever had to satisfy me of the voracious appetite of some people for obscene material.

Mr. Arthur Davidson: How does the hon. and learned Gentleman know that it was an obscene magazine? It may have been like the film. Can he explain that?

Mr. Gardner: I have a certain judgment, which I try to exercise, and I came to the conclusion that it was obscene.

Mr. Douglas-Mann: If the material is not obscene in the sense that it is not going to deprave and corrupt, and if it is not thrust upon people who do not want it, how does the hon. and learned Gentle-

man consider that it harms, for instance, the men whom he saw at that film? They chose to see the film. In what way would the material harm them if it did not come within the definition of the Obscene Publications Act of being either depraved or corrupt?

Mr. Gardner: I did not suggest that it was doing them any harm. That was their private business. All I am saying is that if people wish to satisfy their appetites for this kind of material that should not be done at the risk of exposing the rest of us to the kind of indecent displays which are being thrust in our faces and which the Bill aims to stop. That is the only point that I wish to make.
One can no more do away with indecent display or with the desire of some people to look at pornographic publications than one can do away with prostitution. But as we have driven the prostitutes from the streets by legislation, so we can do away with this public nuisance of public display by a Bill of this kind.
The hon. Member for Accrington will agree that the people of Lancashire whom we represent are about as broad-minded a section of people as one could meet anywhere. But broad minded people are the very people who find offence in having indecency continually pushed before them without their wishing to see it. I share the anxiety to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford referred when he spoke about the need for clarification of the intentions of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary to deal with television. The flow of filth that can come through a television set into a person's home is just about the most insidious and damaging form of invasion of a person's mind that one could find.
I should like to be satisfied, as I hope that the House will be satisfied later, that steps are being taken to make certain that those people who now write in from the constituencies—broad-minded people—complaining about some television programmes will find that they no longer have cause to be disturbed by what I would describe as this particular kind of public nuisance.

Mr. John Fraser: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman define what


he means by the portrayal of filth on television? Is he thinking of Alf Garnet portrayals, or a programme such as "Hawaii 5–0", which contains a good deal of wanton violence? The hon. and learned Gentleman ought to define the term "filth". Does he include violence?

Mr. Gardner: It has become fashionable to use the word "obscene" in a wider context than was at one time intended. I certainly say that violence is obscene in that context. Indecent material that is offensive is put over on television. I do not say that it happens frequently, but it is often enough to make it offensive to a wide audience throughout the country. To understand the breadth of this audience one has only to look at the correspondence one receives from people who have watched these programmes. I shall not refer to any particular programme, but I am sure that the House and people who watch television will understand all too well the kind of material to which I refer.

11.19 p.m.

Mr. Philip Whitehead: I cannot follow the hon. and learned Member for South Fylde (Mr. Gardner) in his excurses upon his adventures as a mackintosh man. I do not have such a lurid memoire to contribute to the debate. He appears to be saying to the House, as I suspect that the optimists in this argument on definition have been saying throughout, that although none of us can precisely define "indecency" we all know it when we see it.
Unfortunately, that is not strictly true. I shall come to what the hon. and learned Member said about television at the conclusion of my remarks. It is certainly not true across the whole field of the arts and communication. It has not been true either as a definition in the courts or in the general matter of public debate over a period on the whole question of how indecency should be defined. Is it, as some people say, that it affronts the ordinary modesty of the average man? Is it, as Lord Parker said in the Oz case, that
'indecent' means unbecoming and immodest, with indecent at the bottom of the scale? If you are on the beach with your children and a woman takes off her clothes, that is

indecent because we just do not do that son of thing in this country.
Is that what is said in the courts, or, when prosecutions are brought under this legislation—if it passes into law—is that what we shall mean by "indecency"? Is it not true that it is extremely difficult to provide a satisfactory definition?
There are many features of this Bill which I welcome. People have a right to be protected from the gratuitous insult of unsolicited material coming through their mails; of equally unsolicited advertisements displayed in public places, which assail and affront them as they are passing along public thoroughfares. I do not think there is a single person in the House who would not argue for a moment—and my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) made this point very strongly—that here is an area where there should be legislation, and the contents of Clause 10 receive a very warm welcome indeed.
I have had constituents come to see me with material of a most disgusting kind, which was of course only advertising for the real pornographic material that was to follow, sent to them quite unsolicited through the post. To add insult to injury there has been a letter accompanying saying, "As you are one of our most valued customers", as the initial sentence, which is not only an affront to the individual but is very hard to explain to the wife. The difficulty is that even when we look at what comes through the mails, there can be differences of opinion as to what is indecent and what is not. Something which I received through the mails only the other day is a scatalogical cartoon of the reigning monarch seated upon the lavatory with the consort. It is a cartoon by Gilray and the reigning monarch is George III. Most of us would not now consider that material to be grossly offensive.
But there may well be people who feel that it is extremely indecent, and there are certainly people who feel that the work of the modern equivalents of Gilray—cartoonists such as Gerald Scarfe—is extremely indecent and should be prohibited; and that some of the covers of magazines such as Private Eye come into the area of indecent display which is dealt with in this Bill. I sincerely hope


that when this Bill goes to Committee, and when we make Committee stage speeches upon it, these problems can be ironed out and that it will be a better Bill because of that.
I come now to the question of film clubs and what happens there, and I want to endorse what my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Mr. Hugh Jenkins) said in this regard. All of us in this House have received a very strong statement from the British Film Institute on the question of the threat to bona fide film societies and local film clubs, which may be put at risk under Clause 3 of this Bill. The Institute said in its Press statement that it
foresees financial difficulties resulting from the delay in obtaining local authority sanctions".
Clause 3 makes it clear that, although there will be exemptions in the provisions regarding advertising, those exemptions will be wholly within the powers of the local licensing authority, and there will not be a statutory limitation on the powers of the authority to exempt or not to exempt the film societies concerned.
I do not think we need to stretch the point too far to see situations in which some local authorities might have objections to the activities of a certain film society which go well beyond the agreed definition of "indecency" which we would want to see in this House. It is for that reason that we ought to be careful about how we interpret Clause 3 when we come to the Committee stage. It is true that there have been difficulties for the police and others, when they have tried to get together material under the various Cinematograph Acts and the Obscene Publications Act in order to bring a prosecution against a film such as Andy Warhol's "Flesh", where there was an attempt to bring a prosecution. Nevertheless, it is true at the moment that films are not subject to other legislation which might bring them more within the ambit of public concern. Films are not, I think, as subject as they might be to the provisions of the Race Relations Act.
Nevertheless, we must be very careful that in exercising new powers over local film societies we do not in this area destroy genuine creative effort and genuine community activity which is not

at all concerned with two or three shoddy pornographers getting together, running up a film called "Wendy Surprised by the Gardener" or something like that and showing it through what they call "a film society"—whether for gain or not—or perhaps for their own perverted pleasure.

Mr. Heffer: What about Warhol's "Flesh"?

Mr. Whitehead: There are some people in this country—I am not one of them—who believe that that film had artistic merit. There would be many more who would say that it was not made with pornographic intent, whatever obscure gratifications it may have satisfied in the minds of Andy Warhol and the peculiar court who hang around with him. Nevertheless, there would be an argument—my hon. Friend must recognise this—as to whether that film comes within the definition of deliberately created pornography, of which my hon. Friend spoke earlier.
On the rest of the Bill, I share the reservations which have already been expressed about the sufficient wideness of the other areas of exclusion in Clause 6, Clause 8, and later in the Bill. It is possible, under the Bill as at present drafted, for books and theatrical performances to be pulled in. It is equally true, as has been said already, that people who take an objection to a theatrical performance or a recording and who wish to use Clause 8 can do so, irrespective of whether many other people would agree with their definition of indecency.
There was a major debate recently about whether the recording of the song by Jane Birkin "Je t'aime, Je t'aime" is indecent because there is a good deal of heavy breathing on it which was alleged to be a simulation of the sounds of the sex act. Other people thought that it was simply a sign of the near despair of the two performers that they would ever reach the required notes of the song. Nevertheless, it would be possible at present for such a recording to fall within the ambit of the Bill.
That brings me to the area of broadcasting generally, to which several hon. Members have referred. I am a little concerned that, although we are told


that radio and television and broadcasting is excluded from the provisions of the Bill—[interruption.] Indeed, that is specifically mentioned in two separate places. Sound or television broadcasts are mentioned as being excluded in Clause 8(2). "Je t'aime, Je t'aime" is, or was at one stage as it was broadcast by the BBC, a sound broadcast.
The point I want to make and which I made originally to the Secretary of State in his opening speech is that there are areas—these are growing areas in communications—which are not covered by this exclusion. I believe that under the Cinematograph Act 1952 cinematograph performances were taken to include closed circuit television. They were taken to include, therefore—I imagine—what we now call cable television, which is that area within which there is now an initiation of programming as there was not in 1952, although relay radio and television was well known at that time.
I should like to know from the Minister of State whether in this area, which is an expanding one and where I acknowledge that there are degrees of risk, we shall allow that same degree of exemption to local cable television as it develops as is allowed under the Bill for the rest of broadcasting.
I acknowledge immediately that, as cable television and cassette television develop, it is likely that some elements of hard core pornography will move in. I am already told by acquaintances of mine who are involved in the cassette market—the marketing of the so-called soft ware for the next stage of the communications revolution—that what they regard as the really lucrative area in the marketing of cassettes over the next 15 to 20 years is what they with a certain ambivalence call "soft pornography".
If we reach the stage where this stuff is being marketed, whether illicitly or otherwise, we must be sure that when we have television sets which are capable are recording and replaying the stuff the matter is covered in legislation. But, unlike the hon. and learned Member for South Fylde (Mr. Gardner), while recognising that there are good intentions as well as bad, I should not like to see the intentions behind the Bill extended into the area of mainstream broadcasting as we have it now.
The hon. and learned Gentleman talked of an appalling amount of filth pouring out of the television organisations today. I do not believe that that is true. There are great differences of opinion about the taste, or questionable taste, of some of the material which is broadcast, but there are statutory bodies concerned to deal with those matters. That is what Section 3 of the Television Act is all about. That is why the BBC has its licence and charter, which are drawn up clearly and specifically to cover matters of alleged outraging of public taste or decency—which, I think, are the words of the Act. We should not, I believe, extend the Bill into broadcasting.
If the Bill is to do good in the country—and I believe that in some respects it can—it will do it by holding back the importuning of the pornographer, the importuning which sends material through the mail, which puts lurid advertising in public places and gives general distaste to us all. It will not do good if its provisions are extended into wider areas of communication in respect of which there are genuine divisions in the House and in the country as to what good taste is and, even more, as to what decency or indecency is.

11.31 p.m.

Mr. Norman Fowler: It seems to me that there are two essential issues here. First, is the Bill desirable? Second, can it be enforced? We have not, perhaps, dealt fully with the question of enforceability.
On the question of desirability—here I take up what the hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead) said about cassettes—the House should recognise that we have moved a long way since it last passed legislation on this subject, in 1959 and 1964. It seems to me that we are dealing now with an industry which developed in the late 1960s and which is now established both in this country and in Europe for the deliberate production and distribution of pornography. Not only does it produce pornography in this country but it imports pornography from other countries. The profits are great, and the turnover in this country alone must run into hundreds of thousands of pounds. That, I suggest, is the context within which the Bill should be considered.
Nor can there be any dispute about the intention of the pornographers. We are not talking here about abstract ideas of freedom and principle. The pornographers produce their product with deliberate intent, and they have an interest in having it recognised, as it were, as pornography. We are, therefore, facing a new problem which has developed in recent years.
I give full support to the principle of the Bill, and, in particular, I welcome that part of it which safeguards the public against being unwillingly exposed to indecent material. That principle, surely could be shared by almost everyone. Perhaps I should add that even in Denmark, the country which has gone furthest of all in dismantling the controls, there are restrictions on the public display of pornography.

Mr. J. Selwyn Gummer: My hon. Friend will know that those restrictions came in after the original changes in the law were made because the Danish authorities found that, without such restrictions, the law itself was a public disgrace. They introduced the restrictions a year after they abolished all forms of censorship. That makes the point even more strongly, does it not?

Mr. Fowler: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I bow to this knowledge, and I acknowledge the value of his book on this subject.
The only argument that could be advanced against the principle of the Bill is that advanced by those who say that pornography does no harm in any event. It is an argument that has been advanced in Denmark and in several other European countries. In particular, it is claimed that liberalisation, as it is called, in pornography leads to a reduction, especially a reduction in sex offences.
Rather surprisingly, that argument has not been used in the House, but I think that it will be used outside and it is important that we should consider it with great care and great caution. The claim is based on research work done by Professor Kutschinsky from Copenhagen University, whom I met earlier this year. I do not doubt the intention of his research. What I doubt is whether it is conclusive in what it tries to prove.
It is based on a reduction in only one kind of sex offence and I cannot for the life of me see how research that by definition has been going on only since the change in the Danish law, that is, since 1967 and 1969, can in any way be claimed to be conclusive by this stage. I should have thought that it could not sustain anything but the most tentative impression.
When talking in Denmark and other countries in Europe about the problems of pornography, I thought that the point that came over most forcibly was that the reason why several countries had dropped their controls was not to do with principle, but was that it was difficult, and for them impossible, to enforce the law. That is an important factor of which we should take careful note, for the attitude of those countries means that we shall be faced with difficult enforcement problems.
That follows because it is now no longer an offence to export it. In other words, this is completely dissimilar from the drugs situation in which international agreement recognises the illegality in all countries. In this instance, the only offence is when the pornography is imported into this country. There is thus a danger that this trade, which has already grown to a vast extent in this country, will increase even more, and that is why it is so important that we should make the law enforceable.
On this issue I have two comments. First, at present the police are faced with serious problems in enforcing the existing law. The centre of the pornography trade is plainly Soho. Some of the shops there have been prosecuted and convicted several times and some many times. The reason is that the man who is convicted once or twice will not risk a third conviction, which may mean prison, and so his place is taken by someone else.
This is the point that I made in an intervention in the speech of the hon. Member for York. (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon). The ownership of the shop remains the same, but the men who are prosecuted are not the owners of the shops; the men who are prosecuted are the front men, who have a percentage of the takings of that shop.
Unfortunately, at present the owners of the shops rarely appear in court, because it is so difficult to find out who they are. One of the reasons is that the


police do not have power to check with the Land Registry to see who is the freeholder of a property. If they were concerned with the ownership of a company, the police could check with Companies House, but they have no similar power to check who owns a freehold.
Even if the police had such powers, the job would still be difficult, because in an area like Soho there are leases and sub-leases. But such a power would help, and if our aim is to make the law enforceable, we should pay close attention to giving the police access to the Land Registry so that they may check the identity of freeholders of property. I cannot accept—I am, of course, open to argument—that there would be any conceivable argument about civil liberties. It seems that all that we are doing is duplicating what has been done already with full registration. If we want a good law then we must make it an enforceable law.
My second reservation concerns a matter which has been raised by hon. Members on both sides of the House—namely, the lack of definition of "indecency". I accept that there are probably grave difficulties in producing such a definition, but we must be clear what we are doing. We are saying to the police, "You will define what you believe to be indecent and then the courts will check that definition." That may not have much effect on public displays but it could have a real effect on moving picture machines.
Although there has been a certain amount of sniggering about what-the-butler-saw machines, I thought that my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) was absolutely right. We are not talking about that kind of machine. It is all very well for the hon. Member for York to say that he envies the DPP and the Home Office for the access which they have to such information or at least to wish that he had more access. All that the hon. Member for York has to do is to walk into Soho to see the machines in the arcades.
Moving machines were, first, showing hard pornography, including sadism and bestiality: they are now showing what I imagine would be defined as lighter or softer pornography. Arcades in par-

ticular are easily open to children. The machines there have not very much to do with the pier-end machines about which we were talking. It is that part of the industry which is now being extended to the greatest extent. The idea and the personnel come from the United States. The fact that we are acting against them is something which I welcome.
It should be recognised that it was considered doubtful by the police, and presumably by the DPP, whether action could be taken under present legislation. I am concerned that the courts, in the context of the Bill, may now look rather more tolerantly than I should like upon this kind of activity. Part II aims to safeguard the public against being unwillingly exposed to indecent material. It seems doubtful whether we can say that people who pay money to look at these machines are being unwillingly exposed to such material. They know perfectly well the kind of material which they will see. They would be disappointed if they saw other than that material.
It is my fear that the courts will have a different and a lower definition of indecency in this context than they may have in others. An alternative would be to licence the arcades. It has been done with arcades which are offering amusement and gaming machines. It would not be a licence for indecency. The effect would be just the opposite. It would mean that the licensing authorities would be able to prevent the showing of pictures which they considered to be indecent. In that way standards could be maintained and enforced without there being any doubt. It could also have the effect of killing stone dead the present trade which is booming most. The trouble with the present provisions is that they lay themselves open to challenge in the courts. Our experience with illegal gaming has shown just how drawn out such challenges in the courts can be and the extent to which they can reduce the law to a state of uncertainty. Uncertainty is the one thing we must try to avoid in these matters.
Good intentions are not enough by themselves. We must also have a law which is clear and can be readily enforced. I hope that in Committee attention will be given to the enforcement of these provisions.

11.46 p.m.

Mr. Bruce Douglas-Mann: I share the view of others who have spoken that the ostensible purpose of the Bill is good. It is, as set out in the Explanatory Memorandum, to control cinematograph exhibitions and to safeguard the public against being unwillingly exposed to indecent material. However, the Bill goes much further. I am afraid that certain clauses are comparable to those passages in the Immigration Act which we later discovered had totally different effects from those which the House envisaged when the Bill passed through the House.
In particular I refer to Clause 9. It provides that when any article is advertised as being for sale or hire and the advertisement is likely to be taken as indicating that the article consists of or contains indecent material, the person advertising the article shall be guilty of an offence. This is not a Committee point. The Bill represents a virtual repeal by the back door of the Obscene Publications Act 1959. The hon. and learned Member for South Fylde (Mr. Gardner) let the cat out of the bag on that point. He wanted, I believe, the repeal of those provisions in that Act which place an obligation on the prosecution to establish that an article was going to deprave and corrupt those into whose hands it was likely to fall, and also provide the defence that publication is for the public good, on grounds of artistic, literary, scientific or other merit, that the article should be made available to the public. As it is impossible to sell any book without some advertising or publicity material, and as any publicity material for any book, however serious, dealing with any sexual subject, must necessarily indicate that the book will come to some extent within the category of indecency as that term has been defined in the courts, we are likely to be back to Victorian standards of censorship.
Under this Bill there is no defence of public good, nor any question of the prosecution having to establish that an article would deprave and corrupt.
But the cover or other publicity material for a book, however serious its intent, whatever its literary merit and whatever the extent to which it was quite clearly outside the professed ambit of the Bill will nevertheless come within that

ambit if anything in the publicity material for the book indicates in any way that it may be indecent or if such material is likely to be taken as indicating that the article consists of or contains indecent matter.
A book which carries on its cover the warning,
This book is for sale to adults only
is indicating clearly that its contents are likely to include indecent matter, however plain the cover. A great many of our current films have sex passages slotted into them simply so that they may get an X-certificate. That X-certificate in itself indicates that the film may contain indecent matter. However, I am more concerned with the kind of literary matter at present available for sale which might be taken by a prurient policeman to consist of or to contain indecent matter.
I have personal experience of cases in different parts of the country where prosecutions have been embarked upon by police forces which, in the eyes of a great many people, would be regarded as almost perverse. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Duffy) gave an example of the kind of prosecution that is likely to occur. In that case, the prosecution was unsuccessful. I should hope that it was, in view of the list of publications involved.
It is clear from the terms of the Bill that it is not only Playboy and Private Eye which are liable to prosecution because it is indicated that articles published in them consist of or contain indecent matter. The same might be said of "The Nude" by Sir Kenneth Clark. Any material advertising a book which could be taken as indicating that it consists of or contains indecent matter would be at risk as Clause 9 is drafted at present.
It is proposed that the test should be that of indecency and not that of obscenity. This is likely to involve a degree of censorship which goes far beyond the basic concept which has motivated the Home Office in the presentation of the Bill. As I understand it, the idea is that articles which are likely to deprave and corrupt continue to be prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act. What has to be got at is the public display of indecent matter.
It could be argued that the objective of Clause 7 could be achieved in other ways. As for Clause 10, I do not wish to support the sending of unsolicited material through the post. But much of what is intended by the Bill could be achieved in different ways, though only if the specific suggestions made by the hon. Member for Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) were incorporated, especially that requiring the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions before a prosecution was instituted. In that way, there would be a uniform standard throughout the country. No longer would a police force be able to decide to take all the magazines in its locality, from Playboy and Private Eye onwards, before a bench of magistrates many of whom would be only too delighted to say that Private Eye was indecent and should be banned, as W. H. Smith has done already.
We must have the consent of the DPP before there are prosecutions, and we must have juries determining whether articles are indecent, rather than magistrates. Many stipendiary magistrates tend to become stereotyped in their ideas. In a way, they become depraved and corrupted themselves after sitting in court day after day. They get a somewhat different view of human nature from that of the ordinary member of the public.
The most serious effect of the Bill is to impose a degree of censorship which I am sure was not intended by the Home Secretary and which I hope he will ensure is corrected in Committee.
If we are to have a greater degree of censorship, which is an inevitable consequence of the Bill as it stands, those concerned should be able to obtain clearance from the Director of Public Prosecutions for individual books or a certain class of journal, so that they know that it is not likely to lead to a prosecution. It is not possible to obtain such guidance from the Director of Public Prosecutions at present. A few years ago I wrote to him on behalf of clients, asking for his guidance on the book "Last Exit to Brooklyn". In reply, he recited the provisions of the Obscene Publications Act, with which I was already fairly familiar, saying that it would be for the court to decide whether the book was obscene and whether a

defence was made out. He concluded, in effect, "If you find, as I am afraid you will, that this reply is of very little assistance to you, I can only say that I myself derive very little assistance from the terms of the law as it stands." That was the situation that resulted in my clients having to defend a prosecution at enormous expense, not that I conducted the defence in the circumstances. They were ultimately successful in the Court of Appeal.
If the Home Secretary intends to persist with the sort of provision contained in Clause 9, which has a vastly wider effect than anything suggested as being the purpose of the Bill, I hope that he will ensure that censorship becomes open, that publishers can at least obtain guidance from the Director of Public Prosecutions that such and such an article will not be prosecuted. If the Director indicates that he will prosecute the publisher can still proceed at his own risk. The Director of Public Prosecutions should be able to give the public advice as to what will not be prosecuted, and thus resolve the problem set out by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe.
There must also be a provision that only a jury, and not a magistrate, will be entitled to determine what is obscene.

11.58 p.m.

Dame Patricia Hornsby-Smith: I join in the congratulations to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary on introducing the Bill. It requires courage to tackle so lucrative and entrenched a corps as those who are ready to make as much money as they can from pornographic displays and pornographic films and material.
Those of us who defend the Bill can expect to be vilified and attacked. Those who defend the circulation of pornography will call in aid everything from Botticelli to Goya and from Shakespeare to Lawrence. They have a great deal of money to lose. They have no responsibility for the effect of their various displays and the results of the blue films that are shown in seedy little film clubs, many of which are quite unknown to members of the local council, because they do not have to be licensed. I have even known members of an authority deny most vehemently that there were any


in their town. The only people who know about them are the police, who, because the clubs are not licensed do not have the same powers to enter them and deal with them as they would in a legitimately conducted and licensed cinema.
The hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Hugh Jenkins) read more into the Bill than is implied. We all know of the great interest of the hon. Member for Putney in the legitimate cinema, and how knowledgeable he is on it but I see nothing in the Bill which in any way impinges upon cinemas which are properly conducted, regularly licensed and properly protected against fire hazards.
We in the House have a responsibility to the electorate whom we represent. We are at the receiving end of the deep disquiet and distress of many parents whose children are so easily and unwittingly exposed and introduced to unwholesome, unnatural and disgusting exhibitions. Because it is so easy for children to see these exhibitions and read pornographic literature they tend to regard them as the norm.
The usual flood of intellectuals will no doubt tell us that we must defend the arts, but the authorities who will have to carry out the terms of the Bill will recognise the distinction in the mind of the ordinary, decent citizen between genuine art and filth and corrupt pornography. The public are sick and tired of seeing the House dodge the column and fail to deal with a matter about which they have been so vehemently protesting for many years.
We in the House frequently talk about safety. We have been vehement recently about the lack of fire precautions in some hotels. Yet there are hundreds of tiny cinema clubs, some in cellars and some on the fourth floor of buildings with no fire escape. They may be crammed with youngsters. Theoretically, an age limit is imposed, but give me tiny healthy, reasonably developed young girl of 12 and in five minutes flat with wig, lipstick and false eyebrows I will make her look 18 or 20. At West Central police station on almost any weekend night one can see girls declaring that they are 16 or 18. A knowledgeable policewoman will remove a girl's wig and find a much younger haircut underneath. The parent will say, "She is not 18, she is only 13,

and I though she was staying with her friend up the street".
As Members of Parliament we must accept responsibility for preventing the offensive displays that pervade the arcades which are so freely open to young people and for the pornography that appears in films and magazines. We cannot just shrug off that responsibility or get out of it by saying that what we do might impinge upon legitimate art.
Some fashionable and widely distributed magazines started as house magazines of clubs with paid-up members of a minimum age of 21. I do not worry unduly if adult or middle-aged men—or women—indulge in this sort of titillation. But the publishers and owners of these magazines realised that if they could be sold on the book stalls they could enormously increase their profits and their advertising revenue as circulation rose, and so magazines which started for and are basically provided for the adult male or female member of a club became nationally distributed.
Today, one sees youngsters of 12 and 13 or even younger going to what we regard as the most public and legitimate book stalls on the railway stations and buying these magazines, of which the least dangerous part are the nude photographs, which, particularly with some of the contortions in which some of the young men and women are photographed disgust many people.
What is more dangerous are the articles and, in some cases, the pseudo and faked letters of so-called guidance. I have had representations made to me by a very experienced gynaecologist and also by parents deeply distressed at having inadvertently discovered literature which young girls have acquired and in which they read abnormal suggestions about home-made mechanisms which will enable them to stimulate themselves and lose their shyness and increase their ability with men.
This kind of literature can be bought on an open book stall by young girls who, lacking experience and in great ignorance, are in great danger, in the view of very experienced members of the medical profession, of irreparable harm. I believe that this should be dealt with. I do not worry if club members of adult age buy such publications; I do worry that


they are openly available on the book stalls to boys and girls of very tender age. Parents and many other adults who believe in decent standards believe also that action about these offensive displays is long overdue in the House. We hear a lot about the environment year—doing away with filth in the air, filth in the streets, filth in the rivers. It is time we did away with the filth that corrupts the minds of those who are not sufficiently mature to be exposed to it unwillingly in the streets, in the shops and in the arcades.

12.8 a.m.

Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson: I agree so much with what my right hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst (Dame Patricia Hornsby-Smith) has said and with the points made by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) when he talked of the simple affront to public decency which is given by the photographs outside cinemas and the window displays of book shops.
Of course, I welcome the Bill. Since so many people have been claiming their part in bringing it about, perhaps I can lay my claim. In 1971, I introduced my own Bill under the Ten Minute Rule, and it was given an unopposed First reading. It sought to do something along the lines on which the hon. Member for York (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon) has talked. It would have treated the whole thing as the sale of offensive literature, but I am sure that this Bill is much more comprehensive and will deal with the matter far more effectively.
But I wonder why it has taken so long for this measure to reach the floor of the House. In 1969, I took a deputation from my constituency—where we had just got a cinema club plus photographs—with a petition signed by 11,000 people to see the hon. Member for Hitchin (Mrs. Shirley Williams), who was then the Minister of State, Home Office. I remember the hon. Lady saying that she was hoping that the Home Office would bring legislation forward. At long last that legislation has appeared, and I welcome it. But, I repeat, I wonder why we have had to wait so long for action to counter the affront to public decency which has been growing since the Obscene Publications Act 1959 opened the floodgates to the sort of material we are discussing tonight.
I do not disagree with the attempt in the Obscene Publications Act to accept that there is a contemporary morality that is more lax and different from the morality before the Second World War. I welcome the idea that serious writers should be given as much licence as possible to write about human behaviour as they feel it should be described. But there is all the difference between D. H. Lawrence putting his ideas into a book like "Lady Chatterley's Lover" and the sort of material that has flowed through the loophole which the almost indefinable definition in the Obscene Publications Act created. Therefore, tonight to some extent at least, what we are seeking to do is to plug that loophole. For some reason which I find slightly strange, if not perverse, we seem to wish to hang on to the definition of obscenity as set out in the Act to tell the courts what is obscene but not to tell the courts what is indecent.
We also seem to believe that while we know what is obscene because we have passed legislation on it, we cannot define what is indecent. Yet we accept that there is such a thing as indecent display material. This is something of a paradox, if not illogical. If we think the 1959 Act definition has been a failure, why do we not admit it? Why do we not go back to the courts and let them decide according to contemporary morality what is obscenity? How can we honestly say we can tell what is obscene but not what is indecent?
Then if we are to depend on the Obscene Publications Act for our definition of obscenity, or on the Cinematograph Act 1952 and its view that private cinema clubs should be allowed a measure of artistic licence, we must bear in mind that those Acts sprang from the pre-dawn of the permissive society and indeed are the cause of the affront to public decency about which so many of us are so steamed up tonight. Indeed, with this Bill I cannot help wondering whether we are not just tinkering with the problem rather than getting to the root of it.
For instance, the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Duffy) mentioned the position of newsagents. There is a suggestion that when the police raid a newsagents to see whether there is any obscene material there they do not act


under the provisions of the Obscene Publications Act but use no fewer than eight different Acts, all of which give them varying powers to achieve their ends. If that is the case, then it is obvious that the Obscene Publications Act is not an effective means for controling the sort of literature that is going into far too many newsagents all over the country.
The Bill seeks to get rid of that affront to public decency of which the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton spoke so effectively. I am referring to the disgust felt by people of all ages, both men and women, at some of the photographs and displays they see around them in public places, and my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, at a Press conference, described the concept of the Bill—indeed, he has used not dissimilar words today—as sweeping out of public view those affronts to public decency.
But I am fearful that out of sight may be out of mind. I hope that simply because the display material disappears and much of the material about which we are concerned finds its way into what will be more or less pornographic bookshops, all but licensed, it will not cause the police to close an eye to the sort of material that is available in them on the grounds that an adult must be free to read what he or she likes. That would be a dangerous argument. I do not believe that any hon. Member would wish to see literature that, for instance, tended to incite racial hatred being freely available. If we draw that line, why should we imagine that pornography does not also have a certain propaganda value?
But I come back to the concept of offensive or indecent literature on display and I repeat that we should seek to define indecency in this context if we believe that we can define obscenity, simply because there is an illogicality about being able to describe the one without the other. It might indeed be better to leave the meaning of both to the courts and to depend upon contemporary morality for their interpretation.
I turn now to the effect of the Bill on children. I understand that no Act of Parliament prevents children buying any sort of material that they wish, and there

is certainly nothing in the Bill which prevents children doing it.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) referred to the Children and Young Persons (Harmful Publications) Act 1955 which I believe was nicknamed the horror comics Act. No prosecution has been instituted under that Act. But among the concern expressed to me by my constituents has been not only their disgust at what they are sent through the post and have to see, but the fear that some of the material that is available in bookshops may fall into the hands of young people who are so impressionable. I should like to see a measure of protection for the young in the Bill and, as my Bill suggested, it might make it an offence for these shops to sell their material to young people under the age of 18 years. I am firmly convinced that we should not only protect adults from being disgusted, but, more important, concern ourselves with the kind of environment in which our children are growing up.
Lastly, I want to touch on Clause 1 and its relationship with cinematographic exhibitions. What will be the position of shops selling sex films for use at home? I am not sure that they are covered by the Bill. Also, if one buys a pornographic video cassette and puts it through a television set, presumably that is exempted by the Bill. Therefore, the point made by the hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead) is worth bearing in mind and should be included in the Bill, because undoubtedly video cassettes represent a boom market in television. If that is to be a boom market in every other sense, can we doubt that the pornographers will get on to it and find a loophole in the Bill which will allow them to sell their material?
However, I repeat that I welcome the Bill. It will do a great deal to clear up the affronts which have caused considerable concern to far too many people. I do not consider it to be a slight Bill. It is important, because it adds up to a better environment for young and old alike.

Mr. John Fraser: rose—

Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles: rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris): Order. Mr. Fraser.

Mr. Fraser: The hon. and gallant Gentleman would not be wearing evening dress if he had attended the whole debate. Therefore, I think it is right that I should wind up the debate for the Opposition now.

Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have never heard it suggested that because an hon. Member is wearing a horizontal tie he is not entitled to speak.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: It is a clear custom of the Chair that if a Front Bench speaker rises to speak he is called. If the hon. Member for Norwood (Mr. John Fraser) wishes to have second thoughts, the Chair will not stand in the way of that.

Mr. Fraser: I give way to the hon. and gallant Gentleman.

12.20 p.m.

Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles: I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and to the hon. Member for Norwood (Mr. John Fraser).
I do not believe that the House should sit in the middle watch, and therefore I shall make only one additional point. I do so in order to emphasise the problem as it affects children and young people.
I still have a young family, and I suppose that, like millions of parents, when I hear my children say that they are going to the movies I wonder what they are going to see. The same thought crosses my mind when they sit up late at night watching television or reading paperbacks which they can buy all too easily.
To hear or see indecent or shocking material often upsets and possibly, arguably, harms children and young people. Not to be able to see such material may be a slight deprivation to the hardened roué, but it cannot be said to be harmful. Let us legislate vigorously about this matter, and if in doubt let us lean over in favour of over-strictness. The Bill should be tightened to deal with the problem as it affects children and young people, because we are legislating not for ourselves but for future generations.

12.22 p.m.

Mr. John Fraser: Mr. Deputy Speaker,
The comparative absence of public complaint and the penalties imposed by the courts suggest that pornography causes less public unease than most other breaches of the law.
Those are not my words, but the words of Sir Robert Mark speaking on oath in the Blackburn case. I had always been inclined to agree with him but the time that the debate has taken, and the thoughtful views that have been expressed from both sides of the House tend to show that there is more public concern about the matter than one might have believed was the case. This has been a satisfying debate, in that extreme views have not been expressed. They have all been serious views, and there has been unanimity about what we believe to be the central purpose of the Bill.
I am slightly inclined to agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Hamling) that there are greater priorities for legislation. I am not convinced that if the Bill deals only with displays of matters which are sexually titillating, that is the right priority. I am thinking particularly of the legislation that we might have seen on race relations, such as has been called for by Sir Geoffrey Wilson, and legislation on the control of firearms. It is strange that, even after the passing of the Criminal Justice Act 1972, the offence of supplying a firearm to an insane or drunk person will carry a lesser penalty than selling Playboy magazine on a news stand at a railway station. Be that as it may, there is general unanimity about the main objectives of the Bill.
What concerns me is not merely whether sufficient attention has been given to sexual deviations, examples of which have been given from books and films, but whether enough priority has been given to the problems of violence and the control of it in our society. That troubles me more than photographs of a naked woman. The Government must make clear the extent to which they intend to deal with the glorification, display and exploitation of wanton violence.
If it is intended that the Bill should prohibit the display of wanton violence, it ought expressly to say so. I am sure that the Home Secretary intends the Bill


to cover that. We ought to devote a great deal more time, money and research into the causes of violent crime. The hon. Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Fowler) will agree that the amount of money that is spent on research into the causes of crime in abysmal compared with all the other money that is spent on the law and order vote. One example of that is that sexual offences known to the police have decreased since 1969; not by very much, but they have decreased. But since 1969 offences against the person have increased by over 33 per cent., and robbery and assault with intent to rob have increased by almost 50 per cent., although there may be a very welcome decrease this year.
Where there is, perhaps, the greatest degree of public concern and public offence is in relation to injury which is not only an injury to a person's susceptibilities but an injury to his physical safety. Therefore, I hope that the prohibition of what is called "indecent display" will be extended to those matters which are likely to encourage or approve of violence. If the Bill is intended to prohibit public display that may be encouragement or a further approval of violence, its definition of "indecency" must be clear. There must be a clear definition.
I come to the word "indecent" on which the whole thing hinges. It is wholly unsatisfactory to ask Parliament to create a new offence without explaining the ingredients of that offence. It is not good enough just to leave it to the courts, for the new creature of statute either to wither or to flourish according to the interpretation of the word "indecent" by the courts.
I urge that the Bill should make it clear, in the words of a leading article in The Times.
that indecency must be of a kind that is seriously and widely offensive.
That is the view of the Solicitor-General. In writing in a Conservative lawyers' report, he defined indecency as being something which was
grossly offensive to the public at large.
Other views have been expressed this evening which support the view that the offence must be spelled out with a great deal more clarity.
Secondly, I hope that the Bill will make it clear that the portrayal of wanton violence is included in the definition of indecency. I believe that violence is seriously and widely offensive.
Thirdly, in order to achieve uniformity in prosecutions, and to stop private prosecutions by cranks and bigots and by people who lack the judgment to bring about a prosecution, it is right that prosecutions should not take place without the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions. I take entirely the point made by the Home Secretary that what is not offensive in Soho may well be offensive in a South Wales valley. But I am sure that the Director of Public Prosecutions also has enough sense to take that point. We are embarking upon something that is rather dangerous if we invite every member of the public to lodge complaints and to embark upon private prosecutions. I thought that that was the burden of what the Home Secretary said.
Fourthly, I believe that the offence should be triable by jury at the option of the defendant, in order to test what is alleged to be seriously offensive to the public at large by the opinion of 12 ordinary and reasonable people. I support what was said by the hon. Member for Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) in that regard.
Some kind of defence of responsible publication in the public interest should be available. When talking about indecent display, I am not attracted by the argument that there should be a defence of literary merit. That argument is not valid. There may be occasions when someone is offended, and someone may regard something as being indecent. Yet there may be a responsible publication in the public interest. That point would be worth while exploring in Committee.
Lastly, in terms of how the offences should be defined and prosecuted, I take the analogy of the Street Offences Act, which has already attracted the Home Secretary. In the early operation of a Bill such as this, there is bound to be a great deal of doubt and there will be a great deal more doubt if the word "indecency" is not defined. There is a great deal to be said for a method of cautioning, in the first instance, before wholesale prosecutions are embarked


upon. The reasons for my urging so strongly a definition of the word "indecency" are as follows. There are two examples which may seem farfetched, but which I do not believe are absurd.
The Daily Mirror has from time to time used the epithet "bloody", even on its front page, and it has been stated—admittedly, in a case in 1911—that the expression, "You can report what the bloody hell you like" is indecent. It is not absurd to suggest that, if we allowed private prosecutions, somebody could start proceedings against a magazine or newspaper which used that epithet, which is probably frowned upon but is not regarded as grossly offensive. Then there is the Sun newspaper, which regularly publishes pictures of naked women on its inside pages, and which has no doubt increased its circulation on that account. Is the Sun newspaper to be prosecuted for an indecent display? It is not absurd to suggest that, when one looks at some judgments on the interpretation of the word "indecent".
My hon. Friend the Member for Accrington (Mr. Arthur Davidson) clashed with my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer), when my hon. Friend the Member for Accrington suggested that the News of the World might be prosecuted. I do not think that is too far-fetched a proposition. I know of many families where the News of the World is considered to be an indecent newspaper to be kept out of the reach of children, and it is considered to be indecent although it does not appear, on the face of it, to be an insidious and corrupting publication. But where children come across articles in the News of the World by accident in their parents' home, people in some parts believe that they are corrupted by it.
I do not pretend to make any judgment upon the News of the World, but it was not far-fetched of my hon. Friend to suggest that some newsagents, particularly if we are to have local options for prosecution, might be prosecuted. After all, the News of the World is illegal in Southern Ireland and, if one lives in a district which is inhabited mainly by Roman Catholics from Southern Ireland, is it going too far to suggest that somebody might initiate a prosecution for a display of that newspaper, because it

offends the susceptibilities of the majority of the people living in the neighbourhood? That example illustrates the need for greater clarity and greater definition.
There are many perfectly responsible newsagents, publishers, authors and advertisers who could be put at risk because of imprecise definition, or the vagaries of prosecution policy. I agree wholeheartedly with the speeches that have been made in defence of newsagents who are perfectly respectable and not peddlars of filth or pornography, but who, if we do not get our definition right, risk prosecution and the confiscation proceedings which have been described. People are entitled to look for certainty in the law and reasonably precise definitions of what they may or may not do.
What I want to see incorporated in our law—and I am sure that this is the wish of everyone who has spoken—is the certainty that the ostentatious display of matter which grossly offends the public at large, and which is intended to be intrusive and provocative and without regard for the public good, will be swept from the public view. There are people who intend, aggressively and ostentatiously, to offend and intrude into people's ordinary lives. It is that kind of intrusion that we want to prevent, not the cranky or bigoted prosecution of a magazine which is kept at the back of a counter in a newsagent's shop, which is not displayed prominently and which does not give offence to the public at large.
What I have defined is what we want to achieve. There is adequate precendent for that. We have precedents in town and country planning legislation. Many advertisements are prohibited, or permission for them can be revoked by local authorities. When talking about what is intrusive or visually offensive, there is adequate precedent so long as we are not to make this a law which can bring about censorship and bigoted interference in people's everyday lives.
In Part II, Clause 6(2)(a) may contain words which are too wide to achieve what the Government intend. It is the use of the phrase
in … any place to which the public have access".
It may well be that goods kept—not displayed—inside a place to which the


public have access but about whose purpose they can have no misapprehension should not be caught. There is in Tottenham Court Road a place called "The Sex Shop" or "The Love Shop"—I forget which. Anybody going inside that shop can be under no illusions as to what is sold inside. If the matter is not displayed to the public going up and down Tottenham Court Road, the proprietors of that shop should within reasonable bounds be able to display and have on sale, inside the shop, that which does not offend ordinary passersby, because customers know in advance the kind of goods that are sold inside.
Clause 6(2)(b) says—
shall be deemed not to be publicly displayed if it is visible only from a place to which the public are not permitted to have access except on payment which is or includes payment for the display.
If a play has as an incidental part of it something which is considered to be indecent or offensive it could be alleged, again particularly if there are private prosecutions, that the person had not paid to see such display. The drafting should be reconsidered.
Clause 9, the clause dealing with advertising, should receive serious reconsideration. There may well be merit in warning people of the contents of a book, for the protection of children and people who do not want to come up against pornography. In my Army days, a paperback version of "Great Expectations" was published. The paperback had a lurid cover. Many soldiers in my unit were grossly disappointed by the Dickens content.
Equally, we do not want people to buy "Last Exit to Brooklyn" in the belief that it is a travel guide to some part of New York. There is an advantage in people being warned about the contents of books which may be considered to be, if not pornographic, at any rate risky or offensive.
I wholeheartedly agree with Clause 10. The essence of the Bill is to protect people's reasonable and fair expectations not to be assaulted with matter offensive to their ordinary standards of propriety.
I have doubts about Clause 12(2). The Government should look again at the seizure and destruction provisions and

have at least the safeguard that if no prosecution is brought the goods may be returned or seizure may follow until the trial and conviction of the person who is supposed to be in possession of the matter in question.
Part I, which deals with cinematograph displays, must be seen in an entirely different light from Part II. Part I does not deal with unsolicited, aggressive and ostentatious displays which are a social evil. It deals with private and restricted showings—an entirely different matter. In my view, it would be right to accept the suggestion made by the British Federation of Film Societies, that all cinema exhibitions not covered by the cinematograph Acts, that is, those which are not licensed by local authorities, should be subject to the Obscene Publications Act, so that the limits on private behaviour would apply equally to cinema club showings as to showings of films in a person's own home.
If that were done, it would, I suggest, be sufficient. If one stopped there, it would put at considerable risk those who showed obscene films under the guise of a club or private viewing, and at the same time it would avoid the bureaucratic and irksome control of private exhibitions about which anxiety has been expressed by hon. Members on both sides, notably in thoughtful speeches by the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) and by my hon. Friends the Members for Putney (Mr. Hugh Jenkins) and for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead).
We should in that way avoid bureaucratic restrictions on private showings, and we should avoid also what I fear will otherwise be gross disparities between one part of the country and another. Under the Bill, the licensing authority is the district council, not the county council, except in London, and I think that the disparity might well be so great as to bring the law into disrepute. I should be much happier if the Government simply stopped at the point at which all private unlicensed showings of films were subject to the Obscene Publications Act.
The Bill is not intended to Ix: an extension of the law on obscene publications, save in respect of private cinema showings. That has been made abundantly


clear by the Home Secretary. The intention is to protect ordinary members of the public, and especially children. I welcome the provisions in that respect. If there is anyone for whom we should provide protection, it is those of tender years who are not able to form a judgement for themselves.
The purpose is to protect people, and especially children, from being importuned and assaulted by matter which they have no wish to see, and, whether that matter is harmful or not, people have the right to go about unmolested by what is grossly offensive.
I support that objective. Whether the Bill achieves it is a question which we shall have to consider carefully in Committee. Many of my hon. Friends have reservations, as I do, about whether the stated objective of the Bill is achieved by what is in it, or whether it may have untoward or unexpected results. We shall carefully scrutinise these matters as the Bill proceeds.

12.43 a.m.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Mark Carlisle): The hon. Member for Norwood (Mr. John Fraser) said that we had had an interesting and wide-ranging debate, and I entirely agree. One prediction which one can make with some certainty is that we are in for a fairly long Committee stage, and I note the hon. Gentleman's concluding remarks in that connection.
I thank hon. Members on both sides for the general welcome which they have given to the Bill. In what I thought an impressive short speech from the Opposition benches, the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) expressed the belief that the Government had attempted to get the balance right in the way that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary had described. Although I am not sure that my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) did not exaggerate slightly when he said that 95 per cent. of the population were wholly behind the Bill, I have no doubt whatever that the intentions of the Bill have the support of the vast majority of the people in the country, just as they have, as the hon. Member for Walton put it, the support of the vast majority of members of the Opposition

even if not of those who took part in the debate.
I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow, East (Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson) that both my right hon. Friend and I recognise the part he has played over the last few years in repeatedly putting to the Home Office the case for legislation of this kind. Having heard all but two of the speeches in the debate, I think that only two hon. Members wholeheartedly attacked the Bill. They were the hon. Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Hamling), whose speech I found slightly difficult to follow at times, and the hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Hugh Jenkins), who announced that the Bill was deplorable, but who, when pressed by my right hon. Friend, had to admit that he himself believed that there was a good deal of indecent display and that we ought to attempt to curb it further.
Some of the latter's strictures were based on a misunderstanding of the Bill. I invite the hon. Member again to consider the point that I put to him during his speech: I do not believe that the Bill in any way affects performances in theatres or commercial cinemas where the public pay for the right of entry. Despite what was said in a rather strange article in The Guardian this morning, I do not believe that Clause 6 or Clause 8 in any way affect the provisions of the law as it relates to performances in theatres or cinemas.
My hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby), the hon. Member for York (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon) my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Thanet, the hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. David Steel) the hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead) and the hon. Member for Putney all mentioned Part I and asked me to say something about its effect. I am prepared again carefully to consider, as I am sure we shall in Committee, the actual wording of Clause 3. Its purpose, to use my right hon. Friend's words, is to get the balance right. We think that that we have met the genuine interests of the genuine film societies, but I am prepared to consider the method by which we have achieved that.
What I cannot accept is the argument by the hon. Member for York, to some


extent supported by the hon. Member for Norwood, that we should abandon Part I as being unnecessary. We are here dealing with a lacuna in the law. The present position is that club cinematograph performances do not come under the Obscene Publications Act. Because these performances take place in a club, a place to which in law the public has no right of entry, they evade the provisions and the normal licensing conditions applying to commercial cinemas. There are, therefore, cinema clubs that avoid the control relating to practically all other forms of expression, through the Obscene Publications Act, or through the licensing system laid down for the commercial cinemas.
Let us be realistic and appreciate that many of these cinema clubs are nothing more than a plain racket. They are clubs only to the extent that it is necessary for them to be clubs to evade the licensing provisions that would otherwise apply. Many are merely commercially run, making substantial profits for those who are running them, and their only connection with clubs as we know them in the genuine sense is that before people may pass through their portals, they have to pay something that apparently grants membership of the club, as well as paying a sum to see the film.
I do not think that we are right to leave such a vast lacuna in the law. Therefore, we are proposing in Part 1 that when an exhibition is promoted for private gain it should be subject to the normal licensing procedure which applies to the commercial cinema, even if it calls itself a club and it is not as such admitting the public.

Mr. Shersby: Is my hon. and learned Friend aware that there are many exhibitions, including the exhibition of industrial films, training films and many sorts of factual films which are made by producers and designed for showing to all kinds of entirely respectable audiences which involve an element of gain?

Mr. Carlisle: I accept that there are many thoroughly respectable cinema societies and clubs. I was saying that an element has moved in, which is no more than a commercial club, which

is making use of the facade of a club as a racket to avoid the existing licensing system. It is that element which we aim to bring within the scope of the licensing control relating to clubs which are operated for private gain. The clubs to which my hon. Friend referred—of course, anyone who has a desire to make a film may show that film—are what we all accept to be genuine film societies.
The Bill says that film societies will become subject to the normal laws of obscenity, but that they will come within the existing licensing control only if they choose to charge admittance and to advertise publicly. If, although not a club for private gain, a club chooses to charge admission to a film and to advertise publicly, it will be required under Clause 3 to notify the local authority. The local authorities can impose conditions on a club's advertising or refuse to allow such advertising. We believe that in principle that is not unreasonable.
I remind my hon. Friend that we have specifically provided in Clause 3 that the local authority may give an exemption certificate for an indefinite or for a specified period to any club which applies to it. I have no doubt that the British Film Institute, which my hon. Friend specifically mentioned, would apply for an exemption from the provisions of Clause 3.
I now turn to Part II. I remind the House again that what we are dealing with is not the law of obscenity. We have deliberately avoided attempting to tackle any form of amendment of the obscenity law. We are not concerned with whether that which is harmful is produced accidentally or by design, or whether it comes within the terms of the Obscene Publications Act. We are concerned with the display of that which offends because it is displayed in a public place and because it is thrust upon the public whether or not it wishes to see it. That is the evil which we are attempting to tackle.
A point which has been raised by hon. Members on both sides of the House, as well as various Committee points, is the basic issue of whether we are right not to have attempted to define indecency in the Bill. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Fylde, South (Mr. Gardner) says that we should not attempt to define it. My hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet says that we should have defined it. The hon. Members for York


and Norwood and the hon. Member for Accrington (Mr. Arthur Davidson) all say that we should have done so. It was a deliberate decision not to attempt to define indecency. May I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow, East, who said that surely it was illogical to have an Act which defined obscenity but not one which defined indecency, that many hon. Members on both sides of the House would argue that the difficulty of the Obscene Publications Act was that it attempted to define obscenity. As was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet the word "indecent" has appeared in many statutes over the last century. It has never been defined in a statutory way, however, and it has not, as far as we know, ever given trouble to the courts in deciding what is indecent.
One hon. Member was being cynical, I believe, when he said that you cannot define it but you know what it is. If the matter comes before either a jury or a bench of magistrates surely what they should bring to bear on the matter is their common sense as to what is indecent. That is preferable to this House attempting to lay down a definition which might not necessarily stand the test of time. By not defining indecency in the Bill the courts are allowed to take into account temporary values and regard what is unacceptable as indecent by those temporary standards. It is better to leave it in that way than attempt any statutory definition.

Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson: Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that the same argument can be applied to obscenity?

Ms. Carlisle: Yes. I have said that there are some who would argue that if the present obscenity laws were in a mess—and I do not take that argument further—the mess was created by the decision to define obscenity in that law. Whereas I believe that most people would be able to say whether a thing is or is not to their mind obscene, they might find it difficult to answer the question whether or not it tends to corrupt or deprave.
The Government believe that to attempt at this stage to define indecent is a path we are better not to start down. However, we shall come back to this

point in Committee. I say to my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet that of course we considered the suggestion in the pamphlet of which he was a co-author that we should include also that which was grossly offensive. But the inclusion of those words would raise a difficulty of interpretation and, while I am prepared to look again at the question of violence and at the protection of children, I recommend that we should be unwise to attempt to produce a statutory definition of indecent.
In case law, definitions have been tried out. The hon. Member for York was wrong to say that in the case of Stanley the Lord Chief Justice said that obscene and indecent were the same thing. He said that the words indecent and obscene conveyed the same idea—which is wholly different from what the hon. Member said—namely, offending against recognised standards of propriety, indecent being at the lower end of the scale and obscene at the upper end. He did not suggest that they were the same. He said merely that they conveyed the same idea of offending against the recognised standards of propriety.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: If indecency is such an easy concept for the courts, does indecency include violence? The only reference to that in the stated cases is in relation to indecency in an ecclesiastical building. For the very reason that it could not include sex, it must include violent demonstration.

Mr. Carlisle: For what it is worth, my view is that certain types of sadistic violence could be described as indecent. Whether it includes violence is no doubt a matter to which we shall return in Committee, where I shall listen to what is said about it.
It has been argued that we should limit prosecutions under the legislation to those taken by the Director of Public Prosecutions and that they should all have the right to trial by jury. In suggesting that, hon. Members are ignoring the type of matter with which we are concerned. While it is right that there should be power to go on indictment against serious cases, it cannot be argued that the alleged indecency of a poster is a matter which should require the prior approval of the DPP before a prosecution is brought, or that the defendant company or individual should have the right to trial by jury.
For many years we have had provisions in the statutes. They are old. They are in archaic language. Their penalties are unrealistic. That is why we have not made much use of them. They all involve offences of displaying indecent material. None of them requires the DPP to prosecute, nor the right to trial by jury.
I was asked whether the Bill was too wide in the area of display that it attempted to cover. It was suggested by the hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles that it was one thing to deal with a display outside a book shop but quite another to deal with a display inside the shop. That point was dealt with effectively, I think, by the hon. Member for Norwood towards the end of his speech. Limiting it in that way is difficult. It may sound attractive to say that the offence should be limited to what can be seen from the street but that a person going into what is called a sex shop knows what he is going into.
The House will remember that part of the evil with which we are concerned is not only that which is displayed in a shop window but that displayed on the covers of magazines inside the shop. Children may be going into the shop to buy sweets, older people to buy newspapers, and they are regaled by the displays that they see. It cannot, therefore, be limited in the way suggested.
I can assure my hon. Friend the Member for Banff (Mr. W. H. K. Baker) that this provision would cover the inside of a sex shop. In other words, it would be an offence to display in there that which was indecent. I do not suggest that everything displayed in such a shop would be indecent, but it would be an offence to display that which was held to be indecent.
I take note of the criticisms from both sides of the House of Clause 9, which is concerned with advertising. I accept that it is a provision which we ought to look at closely in Committee with a view to deciding whether we have it right.
The hon. Member for Kensington, North (Mr. Douglas-Mann) was very critical of Clause 9. But it is not as wide as he suggested. First, there must be an advertisement. Secondly, the advertisement must relate to an article for sale

or hire. Therefore, the clause would not cover an advertisement for the theatre or cinema. Thirdly, the sale or hire must be in a public place. Fourthly, the advertisement must be visible from a public place, and therefore the clause would not cover the advertising of books in magazines or newspapers.
But, having suggested that much of the concern about Clause 9 is because of an undue belief in the wideness of the clause, I repeat that it is one of the clauses we must consider very carefully in Committee. The Government will approach with an open mind whether we have it right.
On peep shows, I entirely agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Fowler) said. Hon. Members have talked about "What the Butler Saw". If they saw some of the recent advertisements the Home Office has seen of what is now available they would realise the need for a clause to control that type of show, which is aimed basically at younger people.
I welcomed wholeheartedly the general support given, even by the hon. Member for Woolwich, West, to Clause 10, which deals with unsolicited circulars. [Interruption.] I am sorry if the hon. Gentleman does not even agree with that. I have no doubt, as a result of my experience at the Home Office, that the type of material going unsolicited through people's letter boxes has become steadily more and more depraved. It is the area that gives the greatest concern, offence and distress to people, not only the young but the elderly, the widow, the spinster. They take great exception to the filth that arrives unsolicited through their letter boxes.

Mr. Hamling: I should like to make my position clear. I entirely accept what the hon. and learned Gentleman has just said. My quarrel is with the terms of the clause, which create difficulties in other directions.

Mr. Carlisle: We can consider them in Committee.
I cannot explain the reasons to my hon. Friend the Member for Banff now, but there are reasons why particular Scottish towns are referred to. They have to do with the present system of licensing in Scotland.
The hon. Member for Derby, North, has twice asked me about television. The BBC and the IBA control only general broadcasting. Other forms of distribution, such as cable television, need a licence from the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications. Programme content may be controlled by the terms of that licence. Cable television would be unlikely to be caught by the Bill, because it is not publicly visible; its control is therefore entirely a matter for the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications.
I am very conscious that I have by no means dealt with all the points raised in the debate. Many of them are more appropriate for consideration in Committee. I hope that the hon. Member for York will accept that the fact that I have not dealt with some of the points he raised at the beginning is because they are matters we can go into in Committee.
The Bill is an extremely useful measure. It meets the feeling of many people that, whatever standards of private morality we may choose, whatever views we may have on what people choose to look at and read in privacy, the House has a responsibility to protect society from the "pervasion of filth", which I think is how my right hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst (Dame Patricia Hornsby-Smith) put it.
I believe that the Bill meets that matter of concern, the thrusting down people's throats or into their faces of stuff which they find offensive and indecent and which by being the licence of others is an offence to their individual freedom.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

Orders of the Day — CHARLWOOD AND HORLEY BILL

Order for Second Reading.

1.10 a.m.

The Minister for Local Government and Development (Mr. Graham Page): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The Bill deals with a unique boundary issue left over from the Local Government Act 1972. The villages of

Charlwood and Horley lie to the north of Gatwick airport, which is itself contained in Charlwood parish. To the south of the airport is the substantial urban growth area of Crawley New Town and beyond. The group straddles the present boundary between Surrey and West Sussex which runs betwen Gatwick and Crawley, leaving the whole of Horley and Charlwood in Surrey.
When I studied this area in the context of the reorganisation of local government, I was convinced that it was right to put before Parliament in the course of the passage of the Local Government Bill the transfer of Gatwick airport from Surrey into West Sussex. It also seemed to make sense, if we were doing that, to move Horley, which contains about 17,000 people, and Charlwood, which contains about 1,000 people, into Sussex with the airport, although I did not look upon that as essential. When that was proposed, there was strong local reaction from Horley to stay in Surrey, even if it meant that Horley was separated from the airport.
In Committee an undertaking was given that if there were an overwhelming expression of opinion by the people of Horley that they wanted to stay in Surrey, even though it meant being separated from the airport, they should be allowed to do so. A similar assurance was given to Charlwood. Though there was a case for both parishes being in West Sussex, it was sufficiently evenly balanced for the local view to be decisive.
Unfortunately, the Surrey interests pursued their battle to retain the airport as well as Horley and Charlwood in Surrey right up to the Committee stage in another place, instead of arranging for a public opinion poll on the separation of Horley and Charlwood from the airport. Those interests were defeated in another place, and only at that stage, once they had clearly lost the airport from Surrey into West Sussex, were the local people faced with the choice between their county loyalty and their links with Gatwick. It was then that a parish meeting was held, followed by a parish poll in Horley which showed a heavy majority of those voting in favour of the area remaining in Surrey. Charlwood also pronounced by way of a parish meeting that it favoured staying in Surrey. Unfortunately, by that time we were at


the end of October last year and the Local Government Bill had already received the Royal Assent. It was, therefore, too late to give effect to the promise which had been made, that by simple amendment of that Bill we would comply with local wishes.
There are, of course, other places where, I recognise at once, boundaries are not ideal, but where the situation is more complex and needs detailed probing before a new line is drawn, and the Local Government Act provides for these cases to be considered by the Local Government Boundary Commission. But I fear that the commission will not be able to give these matters consideration for some time owing to the programme before it to carry out its work of warding of districts and counties and so on.
What makes this case of Charlwood and Holley unique is the fact that a meaningful parish poll could not be held until it was quite clear that Gatwick was going to Sussex, so that the residents were directly faced with the dilemma that they could either stay with Surrey or stay with the airport but not both.
We had given an assurance, and in the event have been unable to give effect to our intention by an amendment of the Local Government Bill itself. I do not think it would be fair or reasonable in these circumstances to say to Horley and Charlwood that they must use the permanent procedure under the Local Government Act and ask the Local Government Boundary Commission to review the boundaries.
No change under that procedure could take effect before 1st April 1974, when the new authorities come into being—the reorganisation date—and so the area, involving some 20,000 people would have had to move into West Sussex on that date and then move back into Surrey later. That would cause administrative disruption and involve considerable personal difficulties for the local authority staff serving the area, and it would be a Gilbertian situation deserving of some ridicule.
Fortunately, the local authorities concerned in this affair on both sides of the county boundary came together and presented us with agreed proposals for a new county boundary. This new bound-

ary will leave the airport in West Sussex but transfer almost all the inhabited parts of Horley and Charlwood, about 18,000 people, on the northern side of the air port, back into Surrey, as they have stated clearly they desire.
I should emphasise that the boundary was agreed by representatives of all the local authorities involved at county, district and parish level. I have accepted their proposals, and they are embodied in the Bill. The boundary line is shown on maps deposited in connection with the Bill and on smaller scale maps which are available in the Vote Office.
The contents of the Bill itself are straightforward. Broadly, there is provision for a new county boundary line, for consequential changes in the district pattern in Surrey, for parish government in the transferred areas, for the retirement of councillors affected, and for new electoral arrangements. I do not think any of these will cause any difficulty in the localities concerned, and they will merely be carrying out the wishes expressed by those localities. The Bill also contains the normal consequential and supplementary provisions.
The Bill does not touch in any way the existing authorities. I refer to those which are in command until 1st April 1974. The provisions are drafted entirely in terms of amendment to the pattern of the new authorities coming into effect on 1st April next.
Provision is made in Clause 1 for the new county boundary and for consequential changes in the district pattern. The part of Charlwood now returning to Surrey is to be a new parish forming part of a new district of Mole Valley in accordance with the wishes of the parish council. The part of Horley now to be returned is to be a new parish forming part of the new district of Reigate and Banstead. The new parish of Salfords and Sidlow, created by the 1972 Act, will go with Horley into the district of Reigate and Banstead. If we are not to have a sort of Bangladesh situation in that parish, it is necessary for Salfords and Sidlow to be transferred to that district.
I must enter one caveat. The new county boundary provided for in the Bill contains no provisions for possible future changes at Gatwick airport. The boundary was agreed between the local authorities


concerned, and they were anxious to establish a sensible workable line which will clearly delineate their mutual responsibilities. Any decisions about the airport will have to be taken in a far wider context.
The boundary proposed now represents the agreed view of the local authorities in regard to a line, which gives effect to the wishes of local opinion and provides a satisfactory boundary for the provision of local government services.

Mr. Ted Leadbitter: I am rather puzzled about this, and I wonder whether the Minister can help me. I understand the Minister to say that what is being proposed is in line with public opinion. But were not these submissions made in the period when we were discussing local government reorganisation, and was not a special plea made in this House on behalf of influential persons in the Guildford area, and, indeed, in Surrey in general? Why did not the Government then acquiesce in those reasonable submissions? Why is it that following legislation on local government reorganisation the Government have now taken the view that separate measures are necessary?

Mr. Page: That was an admirable speech as an "intervention" in my remarks, but I have already explained my reasons. I understand that there was a reaction in Horley and Charlwood against the move into Sussex and that it was thought it was an evenly balanced question whether they should be in one area or the other. Local opinion could have come down on one side or the other. We gave a definite undertaking during the Bill. It may be that one ought not to give these undertakings during the course of debates, but when they are given it is the Government's responsibility to keep their promises. Because the decision of the local authorities did not reach us until a week after the Royal Assent, we are now trying to carry out those undertakings in the Bill.
The Bill is best characterised as a tidying-up operation. It proposes what we would have asked Parliament to do by amendment of the Local Government Bill if that had been possible at the time. It opens no new questions of principle, but gives effect to undertakings which

were generally welcomed when originally given. I commend the Bill to the House.

1.25 a.m.

Mr. Gordon Oakes: Both this House and the other place have considered the two parishes of Charlwood and Horley for many hours. There has been a long and seemingly unending series of discussions about these two parishes.
It is true, as the right hon. Gentleman said, that in Standing Committee on 27th January the Under-Secretary gave what I thought was a somewhat tentative undertaking that there would be a local poll, which was offered, and that the Government would consider the result of that local poll.
On Report on 6th July, at 10 o'clock in the morning, after an all-night sitting—these matters always seem to come before this House in the early hours of the morning or in the other place at 10 o'clock at night, which for them is the early hours of the morning—there was a full and vigorous discussion following an amendment moved by the hon. Member for Dorking (Sir G. Sinclair). We were regaled with not a cricket match but a tournament between Surrey and Sussex, the knights of both shires coming to this House with their lances at the ready to defend their particular county interests. At the end of the debate there was a Division which the Government won by 42 to 24 votes.
The Government were adamant in that debate that these two parishes ought to go into Sussex and that Gatwick airport should not be divided from them. In that Division, not only my predecessor and my right hon. Friend the Member for Deptford (Mr. John Silkin), but my Chief Whip, Deputy Chief Whip and two ordinary Whips went into the Lobby with the hon. Member for Dorking in support of his amendment that these two parishes should go into Surrey. Therefore, I can give a clear undertaking to the right hon. Gentleman that at this stage we do not seek to oppose the Bill.
When the matter went to the other place my noble Friend Lord Garnsworthy moved an amendment on 11th September which engendered a full and long debate—I repeat at 10 o'clock that night. For the other place to start a debate at 10 o'clock at night is a rare


event. At the end of that debate the position of these parishes was worse. Whereas the Division in this House had been 24 to 42, in the other place the result was 14 to 61 in favour of the Government's proposals. Again, the Government said that these parishes must go into Sussex and that there could not on any ground be a division between them and Gatwick airport. They said that it would be illogical, damaging to the county interests involved, and prejudicial to the economic interests of the area.
We were on the side of what was then the rebels but is now the angels, both in this House and in the other place. But still the Government persisted, despite the undertaking given by the Under-Secretary in Standing Committee, that they were right.
The right hon. Gentleman said that the argument was sufficiently equally balanced for local opinion to make a difference. He went on to say that a meaningful poll could not be held until after the Local Government Bill went through. The right hon. Gentleman knows how many meaningful polls were held before that Bill became law. He knows how many discussions there were, and how many facts and figures were presented to hon. Members in Committee, as they were to the right hon. Gentleman, and yet the Government did not bend one whit to those meaningful polls.

Mr. Graham Page: I did not say that a meaningful poll could not be held until the Bill went through. I said that it could not be held until Surrey had been defeated in another place in its effort to get Gatwick airport back to Surrey. It was then that the public had to choose between their county loyalties and the aerodrome.

Mr. Oakes: That is a curious argument, that if a meaningful poll is conducted and the result is presented to the other place before it takes a decision on the matter in question it should regard that expression of opinion as of no accord, but if a similar result is presented to the House after the Bill has been debated the Government will present another Bill to the House to make a change in what was proposed earlier. I

am not disagreeing with the right hon. Gentleman, because he is being democratic, and I ask him and the Government to be equally democratic in other areas of the country where people would dearly love to have a meaningful poll because they find themselves in authorities, counties or districts where they do not want to be.

Mr. Leadbitter: The question of a poll related to the Bill raises an aggravating problem. May we take it, from what is now being proposed, that, in spite of the Local Government Act's only recently having become law, if a poll held in an area of contention shows that public opinion is in favour of a change the Minister will introduce a Bill to give effect to that? Are we seeing the beginning of a new practice? If a poll in my area shows that the people want metropolitan county status, will the Minister do for us what he is doing for these two parishes?

Mr. Oakes: My hon. Friend has anticipated what I was going to put to the Government. The Bill provides a precedent. We are altering boundaries not by the Local Government Boundary Commission, which was established for that purpose, but by a Hybrid Bill.
The Government have reversed the arguments which they defended in Standing Committee, in the House on Report and in another place, by seperating Gatwick from these two parishes. I am not opposing the Bill, but the Government are reversing their previous arguments, and, of course, this is just the day to do that. If ever there was a good day for the Government to present this Bill, this is it. This is the day on which the Government who wanted lower interest rates have seen the bank lending rate rise to 13 per cent. This is the day on which the Government who were committed to growth and bursting us out of a terrible economic situation have introduced one of the severest states of emergency and credit squeeze in our history. If ever there was a day for reversing Government policy, this is it. The Charlwood and Horley Bill fits in very well with the reversal of the arguments on those other matters.
But the Government have introduced a Bill of a very rare type. It is rare for the Government to introduce a Hybrid


Bill, which is a peculiar sort of being. It must come before the House for Second Reading in the ordinary way. Because the Bill deals not with the country as a whole but with only a very small section, it must go to a Select Committee to be rigorously and scrupulously examined before it goes to a Standing Committee of the House in the ordinary way of most Bills. That is right and proper. The procedure of the House is right and proper, because the perils of a Government introducing a Bill affecting a particular small area of the country and differentiating that from the rest of the country are highly dangerous. It is most perilous if a Government can introduce a separate law for a particular area. Therefore, the House rightly demands that when a Government try to do that with a Hybrid Bill it must be examined by a Select Committee as well as by a Standing Committee.
I know, from correspondence that I have received from my local party and from Dorking Constituency Labour Party, and from chambers of commerce in the area, that everyone in the area is not completely in favour of the Bill. I am not saying that in relation to the parishes. It is our duty, in this very unusual procedure, to see that their rights, in a case such as this, to present a petition to the Select Committee putting their point of view are safeguarded. Their point of view is entitled to be heard, and the Select Committee is the proper body to hear it. The proper time for that is not the Second Reading, because we do not oppose what a local poll has demanded. The sectional interests in the area would find themselves dealing with a local situation when the law of the country is different, and they have the right just as in the case of Maplin, to be heard. Those who oppose Private Bills have a right to be heard.
When the Select Committee has made its decision—there are some points about Clause 2 to which I shall refer shortly—the Standing Committee can scrutinise the Bill in the ordinary way. As my hon. Friend the Member for the Hartlepools (Mr. Leadbitter) hinted at in his intervention, I wonder why the Government chose this area to introduce this Hybrid Bill. What is particular and peculiar? What are the issues between Surrey and Sussex that led the Government to go to

the extraordinary length of introducing a Government Bill, sponsored by no less than the Secretary of State for the Environment, the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Social Services? The hon. Member for Dorking has fought well and valiantly at every stage for his constituents. I could understand his introducing a Private Member's Bill. But the Government has brought in this Bill for one particular area supported by a vast array of senior Cabinet Ministers.
My hon. Friend the Member for the Hartlepools asked about other areas and whether this was a precedent. I hope it is. Can we expect that in relation to other areas that were highly contentious when debated in Committee, on the Floor of the House and in the other place ad nauseam, the Government will relent and introduce Hybrid Bills? I hope that a Bill dealing with Glamorgan will be introduced. No doubt my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Fred Evans) will wish to speak on that in a moment.

Mr. Leadbitter: And Hartlepools.

Mr. Oakes: And Hartlepools. I have no doubt that, as is his wont, my hon. Friend will speak to that without my prompting him. In view of the highly contentious arguments that arose about Hampshire, I hope that the Government will introduce a Bill making Hampshire a metropolitan county. I hope that we have Bills about Plymouth and Lancashire. I hope that Herefordshire will rise from its ashes, phoenix-like, and become a county in its own right, again through a Hybrid Bill introduced by a Government who said, "We made a mistake. We did not listen to local interests at the time. They are still the same. Let us have a local poll, even after the event. We shall listen to that poll, introduce a Hybrid Bill and put right that which we have done wrong."

Mr. William Molloy: With respect, is not my hon. Friend being a little harsh on the sponsors of the Bill, who are the Secretary of State for the Environment, the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Social Services? Since they have made such a dreadful mess of everything for which they are responsible, is it not true to say that this is about the level at which they ought


to be involved, with nothing higher than this?

Mr. Oakes: They may be inclined to put right in this little Bill their errors in so many other fields.
The other issue is: what is the function of the Local Government Boundary Commissioners, if the Government are to act in this way? We discussed at great length upstairs the rôle of the commissioners, which the right hon. Gentleman agreed was precisely in this field where mistakes had been made. I can even remember the right hon. Gentleman saying that if a mistake had been made the boundary commissioners could put it right; if there was demand for a change and the lines had been drawn wrongly, the commissioners could put the matter right. This would seem to be a classic case for the Local Government Boundary Commissioners.
If the Government decide, as they have done in the case of this Hybrid Bill, to make an alteration in advance, I will not deny them that right. But I want that right extended to all the areas that I have been talking about, and to many others. This is not a Bill, at a quarter to two in the morning, about two parishes that were in Surrey and are now in West Sussex. I can see a number of my hon. Friends who have constituencies which are miles away from that area, and I know why they are here. They are here to talk about Bristol, Hartlepools and Brecon. These are issues which the Government raise when they bring in a Bill of this nature, and it is inevitable that they will—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris): Order. I am not quite so sure about that, because we are discussing a narrow issue and we cannot take into account what may happen in other parts of the country unless it is absolutely strictly related to what we are discussing.

Mr. Oakes: I quite agree, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. Knowing my hon. Friends as I do, I am sure that they would not step out of the bounds of order.

Mr. Leadbitter: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. You have raised the question of having a debate on the narrow and specific points for determination in this Bill. But, with respect, we are talking about the means by which this Bill

was brought about; that is, by a poll. We want to talk about the principle of how this position has been arrived at. I hope, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that you will allow, while not too much of a general overall debate, at least a reasonable submission by hon. Members who might want to ascertain the intention of the Minister in order to see whether we may have an equal response.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I have listened carefully to what the hon. Gentleman has said. The best thing we can do is to see how we get on. Meanwhile, I will take careful advice.

Mr. Oakes: Knowing my hon. Friends as I do, I am certain that they will not transcend the rules of order. But if they do, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, you will quickly bring them to heel.
This is a Second Reading debate, although it may be related narrowly to these parishes. In a Second Reading debate concerning these two parishes any hon. Member is entitled to ask why the Government have done this for these two parishes and whether the Government will do the same for his area. Any hon. Member can ask "What are the factors affecting these two parishes which differentiate them from the local opinion and desires in my constituency?" Subject to your ruling, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that will be in order in a Second Reading debate. That point of view will be expressed at length from areas which feel bitterly that they have been put with areas with which they do not want to be put or that they have been divided in the most ridiculous way, as is the case with Glamorgan.
I want, finally, to raise some points on parts of Clauses 1 and 2. I may be wrong, and I hope the Minister will correct me if I am. My reading of these clauses is that from an electoral point of view some councillors seem to retire as a result of the Bill but some appear to stay on for various periods whether at county, district, or parish level.
As a point of principle, the Bill should lay down clearly—if we do not do so, the Select Committee will—that new councillors for the affected areas should be chosen as a result of a further election I should like clarification from the Minister that all councillors at county district


and parish level for all the areas affected will, because of the abstraction of the parishes to another area, be elected by fresh elections; otherwise it will be parliamentary intervention in local elections and the creation by Parliament of councillors in office who were not elected by those whom they will in future serve.
There is much in the Bill beyond the question of these two parishes. The Opposition do not oppose the Bill in principle. We certainly do not oppose local issues being heard. Indeed, we applaud a Government that will bring in a Hybrid Bill to give effect to local issues. However, we say that these two parishes are by no means unique. What are the special circumstances which entitle them to a separate Bill which is denied to many other areas? We raise the basic question why the Government have introduced the Bill in the way they have as a Hybrid Bill. I am certain that my hon. Friends who have stayed until this late hour and are very concerned about their constituencies will be waiting to hear the Government's answer to that point.

1.50 a.m.

Mr. Peter Hordern: Having listened with interest to the hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. Oakes), I must say that his memory of past events seems a little faulty. If ever a mountain was made out of a molehill, it was the hon. Gentleman's speech about the transfer of these two parishes—I say that with due respect to my hon. Friend the Member for Dorking (Sir G. Sinclair)—from West Sussex into Surrey.
I, too, remember well the occasion to which the hon. Gentleman referred, when the Local Government Bill was before the House on Report. After an all-night sitting, as the hon. Gentleman said, my hon. Friend the Member for Dorking made a powerful speech not so much about Horley and Charlwood as about the proposed transfer of Gatwick Airport into West Sussex. That was what the argument was about between my hon. Friend and myself. Horley and Charlwood came into it, but only to a small degree.
I found the hon. Gentleman's references to this matter remarkable, remembering the Opposition's attitude on the earlier occasion. They supported the proposal to transfer Gatwick to West

Sussex in Committee and then opposed it on the Floor of the House. The hon. Gentleman can look up the debates if he doubts what I say.

Mr. Oakes: I was there. The hon. Gentleman says that we opposed it in Committee, but there was no Division in Committee. If I recall aright, my right hon. Friend the Member for Deptford (Mr. John Silkin) said at that time that he thought that there was some force in the Government's arguments. When the question was fully debated not in Committee but in the House, with speeches by the hon. Members for the constituencies concerned, he said—in an intervention, I think—"I have changed my mind, and my judgment is more mature now". There was then a Division, but there was no Division in Committee.

Mr. Hordern: If the hon. Gentleman will read the debates again, he will see that his right hon. Friend the Member for Deptford first accepted the Government's argument that Gatwick Airport should go into West Sussex. I happen to remember the intervention to which the hon. Gentleman referred, since it was an intervention in part of my speech in which I wondered whether the right hon. Gentleman stuck to the attitude which he had expressed in Committee. He said that he had changed his mind. I quite understand that, but there are two points to be made about what the hon. Member for Widnes has said tonight. First, he made a great deal of the proposal to shift Horley and Charlwood out of West Sussex and into Surrey, when the argument was really concerned with Gatwick Airport; and second, the Opposition changed their mind between Committee and Report on their attitude to the airport.
However, we are concerned here only with a relatively small area, and a small population at that. It seems to me that the Government have shown themselves to be particularly sensitive to the feelings of a number of people in Horley and Charlwood who want to remain in Surrey after so many years. From the planning point of view, the proposal does not make much sense. In its submission to the Secretary of State in February 1971, the Horley Parish Council said that


the parishes of Holley, Charlwood and Gatwick Airport are inseparably bound together".
And so they are.
Nor is it true that the wish to remain in Surrey is by any means unanimous. For example, the Horley and District Chamber of Commerce, which has nearly 200 members, is at one in wishing to remain with Gatwick and come now to West Sussex. Not only are there close links between Horley and Gatwick; there are close links between Horley and Crawley in my constituency. A large number of students from Holley attend Crawley College of Technology; they use the swimming pool in Crawley, the sports arena and the library. There is therefore a strong argument, on planning grounds alone for the retention of Horley and Charlwood within West Sussex.
That view is strengthened by the consideration that the future development of Gatwick has to be accommodated in West Sussex. There are good reasons, as the House knows, why this expansion cannot take place either in Surrey or in East Sussex. If it must occur in West Sussex, as is accepted by the county council, it seems only reasonable that the ratepayers of West Sussex, having to pay for the expansion, should be supported by the ratepayers of Gatwick and, in my view, of Horley and Charlwood as well.
The Government have said, however, that the wishes of the people of Holley and Charlwood should be respected, and, whatever the logic and strength of the planning arguments, both the Crawley Council and the West Sussex Council have agreed not to oppose the transfer of Holley and Charlwood to Surrey. This decision will have been taken at some cost to their ratepayers and I know that it has met with some opposition.
In these circumstances it would not be right for me to oppose the Bill, as these are matters for the elected representatives of the ratepayers to decide. Anyway, one does not often see such a triumph of sensibility over sense. I congratulate the Government on sticking to their word. The people of Horley and Charlwood have good reason to be grateful to the Government for carrying out their wishes and, with some notable exceptions. I am sure that they will be.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: It may assist the House if before calling the next speaker I say something about the nature of the speeches that hon. Members may like to make. My first instinct, which originally brought me to my feet, following consultation with the learned Clerk I now find to have been correct. In other words, it will be in order to make the sort of speech that the Minister made, or the sort of speech that the hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. Oakes) made, but it will not be in order to raise problems connected with, say, Bristol, or the Hartlepools, or parts of Wales and so on in any detail. I am sure that hon. Members will understand that ruling and I hope that they will help me.

1.57 a.m.

Mr. Fred Evans: If I were a parishioner of Charlwood and Horley, I should be congratulating myself on three or four scores. I should congratulate myself that so small a segment of the total local government seats could be regarded as so important as to command the number of names shown to be supporters of the Bill. I should frame it and keep it for ever, because it may be unique for a Bill of this size to be presented in this way.
Secondly, I should congratulate myself on having won a battle—by whatever pressures and influence—so leading the Government to sponsor a Bill. I should congratulate myself that at long last the Government which had won the election in 1970 partly on the pledge to give more local democracy and had then promptly proceeded to filch it had shown themselves prepared to keep that promise in one small instance, and I do not wish to discuss what pressures might have been used.
It is not so in other parts of the country—not in Wales, for instance. Herefordshire sent a mass of documents to the House and is represented by a Minister of State. How fortunate to be a parishioner of Horley and Charlwood and win this battle when a Minister of State has failed to win it for his county!
Out of this debate we shall distil a principle. The Minister displayed overwhelming tenderness for the feelings of the people and talked much about the community spirit and the proclivities of the people—while hatcheting great counties in three parts and so creating


an abortion of local government. That has happened all over Britain. Inside those counties they have created enlarged district councils with fewer functions. Some of the amalgamated district councils have made representation after representation through the House, through their elected representatives and through whatever pressures they could bring to bear so as to stay in the very circumstances in which the parishioners of Charlwood and Honey have decided they want to stay.
Many Labour Members will now say that if this is a precedent, then, by whatever methods were used to bring it about, they give due warning that they will bring every possible pressure to bear to ensure the reversal of some of the policies which have been applied to our local government areas. I say that not in envy of the two parishes. I congratulate them. I congratulate them, above all, on winning a democratic battle which can impart to the rest of us who are concerned about our local goovernment areas the will to win. If it can be done, by whatever devious means, on behalf of some people, when we fight and then fail to achieve our objectives we shall at least expose the dichotomy—to put it at its kindest—which has been created on the Government benches. We shall see that it receives due publicity.

2.1 a.m.

Sir George Sinclair: For other reasons than those advanced by the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Fred Evans), I welcome the Bill. I thank the Minister on behalf of my constituents and all the local authorities from parish to county council, on behalf of the local government services and the voluntary agencies, which supported the two parishes in their determination to stay in Surrey.
I am glad to thank the hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. Oakes) for his support of the Bill and for the concern and understanding which he and his predecessors have shown when considering the case of the two parishes.
When the Local Government Reorganisation Bill was introduced it proposed the transfer from Surrey to West Sussex not only of Gatwick Airport but also of the two parishes. That proposal caused sharp and prolonged controversy in the area.
In Committee the Minister insisted that the airport should be moved to West Sussex. However, he gave a pledge to respect the wishes of the two parishes if they indicated clearly that they wished to remain in Surrey. That is what makes the Bill unique. I do not think that in any other case was there such a pledge that the wishes of the people would be taken into consideration by the Government. It was only because those expressions of opinion were made too late to be incorporated in an amendment before the Bill received the Royal Assent that we are now faced with an amending Bill. Each parish, in its own way, made plain its preference for staying in Surrey. The Minister accepted those indications as sufficient. Now, by the introduction of the Bill, he is seeking to redeem that pledge. The Bill has been brought forward only after considerable local discussion over the line of the new boundary. It is inevitable in such changes that there should be disappointment on both sides and there has been some in this case. I recognise that. But in the end agreement was reached by the elected local authorities concerned on both sides of the border and the Minister was given an assurance of their support before he introduced the Bill.
This local agreement is an outstanding example of good neighbourliness in action. In that I pay tribute to the concern shown by my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Mr. Hordern) not only for defending the legitimate interests of his constituents but also for the patience with which he has listened to the case put up by my constituents and their locally elected representatives.
If, as I hope, the Bill is given a Second Reading tonight and passes through its stages in the next few months, the people in the area as well as the local authorities on both sides of the boundary will be spared further uncertainty and a great and unwelcome administrative dislocation. Now that responsibility for Gatwick is passing from Surrey to West Sussex I hope that the passage of this Bill into law will be another important milestone in the close co-operation that has developed between the two counties in dealing with the difficult problems that result from the rapid expansion of the airport.
The pledge was given at the Committee Stage of the Local Government Bill and is now embodied in the Bill. I hope it will be given a Second Reading tonight.

2.7 a.m.

Mr. Michael Cocks: The Minister is having a rough time of it just now. Yesterday he was dealing with a major measure on local government and tonight he has to present this hybrid Bill which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Widnes (Mr. Oakes) said, is a most astonishing way of proceeding. The whole of the right hon. Gentleman's case in presenting the Bill hinges on this issue being unique. The Minister knows that only if he succeeds in convincing everyone that it is unique can he hope to stem the torrent of criticism which will flow from areas which are extremely dissatisfied over the treatment they received when the local government boundaries were changed and which will generate enormous pressures for further change.
The right hon. Gentleman was given the able support of the hon. Member for Dorking (Sir G. Sinclair) but there seems to be nothing here to differentiate it from a number of similar issues on a much larger scale in other parts of the country. I do not wish to be churlish about the Bill because, as my hon. Friend said, a number of us voted in favour of the amendment when it was before the House. So in welcoming the Bill we are only being consistent with the view we have expressed before.
We feel that the Bill does not go far enough. Here is a special Bill, introduced by this weight of very high ranking Ministers, to deal with an electorate of 18,000, and the explanation to justify it is most unconvincing.
The Minister referred to a parish council meeting and to a meaningful poll which was held in Horley in order to discover the wishes of the electorate. Perhaps I may compare the details of that poll with those of another, because during the Report stage of the Local Government Bill the right hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann) referred to a poll which had been taken in Somerset. In that poll, 115,000 people voted out of 155,000, or 74 per cent. of the electorate. Those in favour of the Government's proposals were 17,000, or 15 per cent. Those

against were almost 100,000 or 85 per cent.
The Minister spoke just now of a "meaningful" poll. But what treatment did he afford to the statistics of the Somerset poll? In the course of his reply to the right hon. Member for Taunton, the Minister said that it seemed to him that a total poll of 62 per cent. in favour was surprisingly low compared with other referenda which had been presented to him in the course of local government reorganisation. The Minister brushed aside that poll as being "surprisingly low", but how does it shape up with what he has presented to the House tonight?
My information is that Horley poll, which the Minister has described as "meaningful", was a poll of some 35 per cent. of the electorate and that the majority of those who wished to stay in was three to one. I accept that that is a handsome majority. But to refer to 35 per cent. as a "meaningful" poll in this context when he dismissed a 62 per cent. poll as "surprisingly low" and hardly worth considering in the general context of local government reorganisation seems to be a contradiction which I am sure that the Minister, being an honest man, will agree is undesirable and unworthy.
If a poll of these dimensions is meaningful, it opens up all the boundary changes which have been pushed away into the background. My own city of Bristol did not want change. We had good services. If we had to have change, we wanted metropolitan status. Against the wishes of the people, we have had county status foisted upon us. Several problems are boiling up already, and I referred to them briefly last night. We should like to see a hybrid Bill introduced in our favour.
I believe that the Minister realised tonight that he was skating on very thin ice, and I want to refer to what he said about why it was that other areas would have to wait some time before boundary changes could be considered. He said that the Boundary Commission would be fully occupied in the next few years working on the re-warding which had followed on local government reorganisation. If the Boundary Commission is so tied up with re-warding that it cannot get on with the job which is its main purpose, I suggest


that the Minister should either enlarge its membership or set up some other body to perform one or other of these functions.
It is ludicrous to try to fob off people's legitimate aspirations by saying "I'm sorry. We set it up, but it is incapable of carrying out the functions for which it was set up. It can do only one thing at a time. It is doing re-warding, and boundary changes will have to wait." That is an unsatisfactory answer.
If I continued any longer I might be tempted to do that which I must not. I welcome the Bill in its limited way, but the Minister has not convinced the House that the case is unique. He has laid up a great deal of trouble for himself.

2.15 a.m.

Mr. Ted Leadbitter: The principle we are considering goes far beyond the mere question of this hybrid Bill. The Minister has introduced nothing new. I have before me statements made in another place by Lord Garnsworthy, when speaking on last year's Local Government Bill. He said:
I have an interest to declare in that I have been for many years a member of the Surrey County Council and for some years now have been an alderman of that authority.
Lord Garnsworthy has a remarkable reputation for his service in that county, and he weighs his words with great care, as he did in that speech, when he did not speak for his party but spoke from personal experience. He continued:
The proposals under the Bill for the alteration of the Surrey boundary along its frontier with West Sussex mean an intrusion into the county of Surrey which shows up on the map like a sore thumb. It involves the transfer of the greater part of the parishes of Horley and Charlwood including Gatwick Airport from Surrey to West Sussex. That is a proposal which some 87 per cent. of the 18,000 residents involved have rejected."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 11th September 1972; Vol. 335, c. 137.]
The poll that the Minister talks about is no different from, nor is it clearer than, that determination of the residents of those areas at the time we were discussing the Bill reorganising local government. Therefore, why was there the opposition of the Government in Standing Committee to the will of those two parishes to the extent of 42 votes for the Government and 24 against? What has happened since? If the Minister was not

persuaded by the kind of vote that Lord Garnsworthy mentioned—87 per cent.—when we were discussing that Bill, it is obvious that any other expression by the residents of the area could not have motivated a change of mind. There must be another element.
What influential people have expressed to the Minister the need to make a change? [Laughter.] The hon. Member for Dorking (Sir G. Sinclair) laughs, but I am in full agreement with him. He knows that during discussions on the reorganisation of local government hon. Members on both sides of the House armed with briefs expressing the opinions of localities, time after time went to the Minister. Some opinions reflecting views different from the proposals were heeded, but others were ignored, as happened in this case. The Government at that time knew that 87 per cent of the people in these parishes did not want to be moved into West Sussex. Lord Garnsworthy was correct to express his concern. For the Minister to call upon the will of the people to justify the Bill leaves him open to the charge that influential people have brought pressure to bear upon him to bring in the Bill.
I shall now ask another question—

Mr. Graham Page: Before the hon. Gentleman asks another question, I shall answer the one he has asked with a definite "No".

Mr. Leadbitter: If the Minister makes that answer, why has he taken so long to change his mind? When the Local Government Bill was in Committee, 87 per cent. of the people expressed their view. The Minister knows of the pressure from Guildford, Woking and other areas in Surrey which wanted the airport to remain in Surrey. They had a good argument then and have a good argument now.
At that time the Minister could not see how the airport and the parishes could be dealt with separately. Now he finds that he can deal with them separately. The Minister has been inconsistent. By introducing a Bill to deal with two parishes he has created a precedent which I and other hon. Members may have a right to follow in calling upon the Government to give equal support for majority opinion in other areas arising from discontent with


the effect of local government reorganisation. That involves serious trouble for the Government.

Sir G. Sinclair: Some of the misunderstanding of this situation—it is not misunderstood in the area—arises from the fact that originally both parishes wanted to stay with the airport, but always on the basis that the airport would be retained in Surrey. They fought for that, but when the Minister insisted that the airport should go into West Sussex a new situation was created. It was then that they were given a pledge that they could make a choice in the completely new situation of the airport having been moved—in the Government's view, beyond recall—into West Sussex. The new situation brought a new approach to the problem of the two parishes, when they decided that they would rather stay in Surrey than go with the airport, with which they have had some natural affinity.

Mr. Leadbitter: The hon. Gentleman is right. There is no division between us. As we have said, we accept that the opinion of these two parishes has brought about a response which their earlier submissions did not. Lord Garnsworthy went on:
The transfer of the airport would accentuate the difference. The people of Horley and Charlwood have made their wishes known. Surrey has shown that it has the expertise and the experience to deal with the many problems which spring from the existence of the airport and on its own it has handled many of them."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 11th September 1972; Vol. 335, c. 140.]
In other words, while the parishes have succeeded in persuading the right hon. Gentleman that the division between them and the airport by the new boundary has produced partial satisfaction, it has not removed their original determination that the airport and they were intrinsically part of Surrey. In that sense, the hon. Gentleman and I are in agreement.
Do I take it now that the right hon. Gentleman is amenable to future opinion polls arising from the difficulties which have been exacerbated, and which were foreseen, by the early effects of the Act? Many contentious arguments are creating great difficulties as we approach 1st

April. Is the right hon. Gentleman saying that if people say in a poll that they want a certain situation he will respond? Does this precedent create the possibility of a whole series of new submissions? I am not convinced that the poll itself has motivated him. He is a highly intelligent man and of considerable integrity.
During the proceedings on the Local Government Bill the Minister surprised me with his willingness to listen; he acted with a great deal of statesmanship. Are we now to assume that matters will in future be dealt with in the way in which they are being dealt with in the early hours of this morning?
Can the Minister honestly say that no other consideration has motivated him in the way in which he has acted? He knows that the will of the people in these two parishes was known to him when we discussed the original legislation. That will has not altered. If he was not open to an appeal then, he surely should be open to an appeal now.
I feel that another factor may have played its part in this situation. I suggest to the Minister that certain influential people must have pressed upon his Department, it not personally on the Secretary of State for the Environment, the need for this Bill.

Sir G. Sinclair: No.

Mr. Leadbitter: The hon. Member for Dorking says "No". I must point out to the hon. Gentleman that if a right hon. Member claims to be acting with integrity, one does not question him when he says: "These two parishes must go to West Sussex". But when, some months later, 80 per cent. of the population say, "We want to stay in Surrey", he changes his mind. Either the right hon. Gentleman's judgment is greatly at fault—and I should be reluctant to take that view—or we must assume that some new factor has entered into the situation to change his mind. That is the simple conclusion to be drawn.
I have a right to say to the Minister that if there are new factors he should tell us about them. I have argued the case for Hartlepool and in view of the ruling that has been given I shall not pursue that matter further. I merely ask whether this is to be regarded as an


isolated case or whether we shall again be brought here in the early hours of the morning—a time when perhaps hon. Members are not able to be here to make the weight of their views known—to discuss some other similar measure. If in future there is a further poll, will we be faced with another hybrid Bill for another area? The Minister, in reply, should give the House an assurance that we are not to carry out government in this way. It is a bad way to do it.
I hope that the Minister and the hon. Members for Dorking and Horsham (Mr. Hordern) will bear in mind that the Opposition have at least shown consistency. From the beginning we wanted to follow the will of the people. We applaud the fact that they have succeeded, but we do not applaud the inconsistency demonstrated by the Department. For that reason we will not oppose the Bill. However, for the reasons I have outlined, I hope that the Minister realises that by opening the door in this respect he might have some difficulty in rejecting others who have similar claims on the basis of public opinion.

2.36 a.m.

Mr. Caerwyn E. Roderick: I congratulate the residents of Charlwood and Horley on achieving their aim. They must feel very pleased to see such an evening, or morning, as this arrive.
There are times when polls can be useful. Some hon. Members believe that a poll of the electors of Charlwood and Horley concerning the county and the district boundaries affecting them should have some credence and that the Government should act on the results. There are hon. Members who believe that polls have their uses in Northern Ireland. Others believe that a poll of the people of this country on the question of membership of the EEC should be used as a guide to Government action. Further, there are those who believed that the Government should have acted on the polls conducted in the areas of South Breconshire which were proposed to be transferred to other authorities.
The Minister mentioned parish meetings. I suggest that Charlwood and Horley were not the only places at which parish meetings were held concerning

boundaries. There were parish meetings all over the country, but not much notice was taken of them.
The right hon. Gentleman also mentioned that the Boundary Commission would be dealing with boundaries in other areas. I fail to understand why the commission did not see fit to deal with this area. I believe that something was said about its taking too long. But will not delays occur in other parts of the country?
The Minister said that a poll could not be conducted in time. A poll was conducted in Breconshire in time. Whereas 20,000 people are affected in this Bill, 15,000 are affected in Breconshire. Therefore, the figures are reasonably comparable.
Reaction in these areas was said to be particularly strong. There is nothing unique about that. There was almost violent reaction in my area.
The right hon. Gentleman said that undertakings given in Committee should be carried out. I remind him that the Minister of State, Welsh Office gave an undertaking that he would look at the arrangements in Breconshire. What happened? Nothing. We had no note from him on Report.
In Committee on the Local Government Bill a new Clause 20 was moved in my name—although I did not serve on the Committee—which provided:
Notwithstanding any changes proposed in this Act, the boundaries of the present administrative county of Brecon shall not be varied until a referendum has been held to ascertain the wishes of the electors"—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is now developing an argument about Breconshire. I said that such arguments would be out of order. If he will return to his former remarks he will be all right.

Mr. Roderick: I think that I have said sufficient about the boundaries for the Minister to realise what I am driving at. The new clause was turned down by the Minister because he felt that there was no relevance in considering it. Indeed, the Minister of State, Welsh Office said that he would leave it to the Boundary Commission. Will the right hon. Gentleman accept that he has embarrassed the Minister of State, Welsh Office because his constituents wanted


changes but he could not accept them? The people in Herefordshire will not appreciate the passage of the Bill, because they have been left out in the cold.
The hon. Member for Hereford (Mr. Gibson-Watt), when referring to polls, said:
They were not democratic at all. They were polls: perfectly properly conducted, but polls.
On all past experience of referenda of this sort, not only on this side of the Committee but on the opposite side, we have had a clear understanding that referenda as such were alien to our system of government.
Later the hon. Gentleman said that
Government cannot be carried on on the principle of referendum."—[OFFICIAL, REPORT, Standing Committee D,  15th March 1972, c. 2766.]
The right hon. Gentleman altered the boundary of Teesside as a result of a referendum, and he is dealing with another area this evening. Will the right hon. Gentleman, in exchange for our support for the Bill, suggest to the Secretary of State for Wales that perhaps there is another way of looking at polls, because we are getting a different response from the Government. We are happy to support the Bill—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. The hon. Member is now out of order. He must drop that line of argument altogether.

Mr. Roderick: I conclude by saying that we are happy to support the Bill because this is the sort of thing that we wanted to see throughout the debates on the Local Government Bill. As many hon. Members have said, we wish that it were possible to extend this idea.

2.42 a.m.

Mr. Graham Page: I hope that I may have the leave of the House to reply to the debate.
The hon. Member for The Hartlepools (Mr. Leadbitter) raised the question of a poll referred to in another place. I could not accept that poll, because it was not on the same point as the one to which I referred. The debate at that time concerned the movement of the airport and the two villages with it. It was not about the question of the transfer of the two villages back to Surrey. The poll was not taken in the formal statutory manner that I had requested. It is there-

fore wrong to say that at that stage we were aware that a proper poll had been taken of the views of the people of Charlwood and Horley about whether they wish to be in Surrey if Gatwick Airport was in West Sussex.
I shall now deal with the question which the hon. Gentleman put and the insinuation which he made in it, because I resented it very much. The hon. Gentleman asked what influential people had persuaded me to change my mind. I have not changed my mind, and no influential people have tried to persuade me to do so.
The hon. Gentleman accused me of being inconsistent. That remark was unworthy of the hon. Gentleman, because I am trying to carry out an undertaking which was given by a Government spokesman.
The hon. Gentleman asked whether I would be amenable to future opinion polls. The answer is "No". That is not the point of the debate. There was a clear statement that the matters were so balanced that if there were a proper expression of opinion in these two comparatively small areas it would weigh with us—we hoped before the Bill received the Royal Assent. If we could have made this change by an amendment to the Bill we should have done so, and it is extraordinary that the hon. Gentleman should abuse me for carrying out that undertaking.
The hon. Member for Bristol, South (Mr. Michael Cocks) quite rightly questioned the programme of the Local Government Boundary Commission as I had described it in my opening speech. I did not express it properly. The commission has a job of work to do in re-warding, but I gave an undertaking to the House during the passage of the Local Government Act that a certain number of points would be put to the commission at a very early stage. That still holds good. I cannot remember how many points there are, but there are not more than a dozen. The commission will deal with them at an early stage. The commission is now considering its future programme and hopes to make an announcement about it. We gave some extra work to the commission by asking it to make decisions on some further successor parishes, which has caused the commission a little inconvenience, but I


hope that it will make public its programme soon and indicate how these other boundary matters will be dealt with.
The hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. Oakes) referred to debates and divisions in both this place and another place. In all those cases, what we were discussing then was whether Charlwood, Horley and Gatwick should be moved one side or the other side of the county boundary. We never debated in this House the point of this Bill: whether it was right to divide Horley and Charlwood, on the one hand, from Gatwick Airport, on the other hand. It was made quite clear in the undertaking that it was on that decision that we would act.
This is where the whole of the case which I am trying to present is totally different from any of the others. There is no question that we shall now consider polls which may be presented to us, and no case for comparing this case with others which have involved major matters of principle, such as Glamorganshire, Breconshire, Somerset, whether Avon should have metropolitan status, Herefordshire, Teesside and Hartlepools. All of those are matters of considerable, major principle, and even Hale, if I may add that one.
No local government principle is involved in this particular case. I have said that the matter was evenly balanced. The only principle involved is the carrying out of a pledge given by the Government. I hope that the House will let us carry out that pledge as a matter of particular importance; not as a matter of principle in local government but because we are honouring an assurance solemnly given to those people in the area in the process of the passage of a Bill.
The hon. Member for Widnes asked about the electoral position and the elected councillors. Perhaps I may summarise this matter quickly. The county councillors elected to West Sussex for Charlwood will retire and there will be a re-election for that area when it is within Surrey. The same applies for county councillors who were elected to West Sussex for Horley. They also will retire. The district councillors elected respectively for Charlwood and Horley in the district of Crawley will retire.
The parish councillors will continue because there is no difference in their electorate. The Charlwood parish councillors will continue and there will be no need for any election there. In two of the wards of Horley, councillors will continue but in the third ward, where there is an alteration of boundary, there will have to be a re-election. The parish councillors of Salfords and Sidlow will continue without any further election. All this appears in Clause 1(9) to (13).
I hope that I have summarised the Bill intelligently. I appreciate that it is a little difficult to understand as the clauses are drafted, but that is their effect. I ask the House to give this Bill a Second Reading.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Ordered,
That the Bill be committed to a Select Committee of Eight Members, Four to be nominated by the House and Four by the Committee of Selection:

Ordered,
That there shall stand referred to the Select Committee—

(a) any Petition against the Bill presented by being deposited in the Private Bill Office at any time not later than the seventh day after this day, and
(b) any Petition which has been presented by being deposited in the Private Bill Office and in which the Petitioners complain of any amendment as proposed in the filled-up Bill or of any matter which has arisen during the progress of the Bill before the said Committee,

being a Petition in which the Petitioners pray to be heard by themselves, their Counsel or Agents:

Ordered,
That if no such Petition as is mentioned in sub-paragraph (a) above is presented, or if all such Petitions are withdrawn before the meeting of the Committee, the order for the committal of the Bill to a Select Committee shall be discharged and the Bill shall be committed to a Committee of the whole House:

Ordered,
That any Petitioner whose Petition stands referred to the Select Committee shall, subject to the Rules and Orders of the House and to the Prayer of his Petition, be entitled to be heard by himself, his Counsel or Agents upon his Petition provided that it is prepared and signed in conformity with the Rules and Orders of the House, and the Member in charge of the Bill shall be entitled to be


heard by his Counsel or Agents in favour of the Bill against that Petition:

Ordered,
That the Committee have power to report from day to day the Minutes of the Evidence taken before them:

Ordered,
That Three be the Quorum of the Cornmittee.—[Mr. Graham Page.]

Orders of the Day — SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Ordered,
That a Select Committee be appointed to consider Science and Technology and to report thereon from time to time:
Committee was nominated of Mr. Ronald Brown, Dr. John Cunningham, Mr. David Ginsburg, Mr. Ted Leadbitter, Mr. Ian Lloyd, Mr. Airey Neave, Mr. John Osborn, Mr. Arthur Palmer, Dr. Gavin Strang, Dr. Tom Stuttaford, Mr. Tebbit, Mr. Tugendhat, Mr. Kenneth Warren and Mr. John Wilkinson.

Ordered,
That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers and records, to sit notwithstanding any Adjournment of the House, to adjourn from place to place, to admit strangers during examination of witnesses unless they otherwise order, and to report the Minutes of Evidence from time to time.

Ordered,
That Five be the Quorum of the Committee:

Ordered,
That the Committee have power to appoint Sub-committees and to refer to such Subcommittees any of the matters referred to the Committee:

Ordered,
That every such Sub-committee have power to send for persons, papers and records, to sit notwithstanding any Adjournment of the House, to adjourn from place to place, to report to the Committee from time to time, and to admit strangers during the examination of witnesses unless they otherwise order:

Ordered,
That Three be the Quorum of every such Sub-committee:

Ordered,
That the Committee have power to report from time to time the Minutes of the Evidence taken before such Sub-committees:

Ordered,
That the Committee have power to appoint persons with technical or scientific know-

ledge for the purpose of particular inquiries, either to supply information which is not readily available or to elucidate matters of complexity within the Committee's order of reference:

Ordered,
That the Minutes of the Evidence taken before the Select Committee on Science and technology and before the Sub-committees appointed by that Committee in the last Session of Parliament, together with Appendices, be referred to the Committee.—[Mr. Humphrey Atkins.]

ADJOURNMENT

Motion made, and Question proposed. That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Jopling.]

Orders of the Day — HOUSING (EALING)

2.51 a.m.

Mr. William Molloy: The London borough of Ealing has a very serious problem, in that, despite the valiant efforts of the local authority, it cannot adequately house no fewer than 8,000 families. Even worse, the number of homeless families in the borough is increasing. The housing committee, the officers of the borough, the councillors and the aldermen are all very much aware of the seriousness of the problem, but despite their efforts the situation is getting worse and before long will reach crisis point. I am raising this issue now in the hope that nothing like it will happen again.
The problem in Ealing has been grossly aggravated by the appalling behaviour, the disgraceful behaviour, the absolutely disgusting behaviour, of the previous Conservative administration. I should like to give the facts to the Minister, who has a much more sensitive and realistic approach to the problem of the 8,000 on the housing register in Ealing, and the 140-odd families who are homeless, than the previous Conservative administration, which treated this matter in a heartless and brutal manner.
My evidence for what I am saying is contained in the report of the Committee on Estimates which, in 1968–69, examined no fewer than 1,199 local authorities and selected 14 which were deliberately cutting back their housing endeavours, despite the fact that there was a threat


of a growing housing register. Included among those 14 boroughs which were specially named by the Estimates Committee was Ealing. The efforts of the present administration might not have been so hopeless if there had been a human appreciation of the growing problem, and I am being as charitable as possible when I say that the previous Tory administration were not so much heartless as suffering from appalling myopia.
No hon. Member can be happy with the grievous situation in London generally. I know that the Under-Secretary is concerned about it, and I compliment him on his concern. In future, irrespective of party, we must ensure that what happened in Ealing under Tory administration never happens anywhere else in the country.
I am encouraged, because in my constituency there has been an improvement in the situation which was inherited by this administration. For example, in May 1971 the preparations for new units totalled 64. By November 1972 that had increased to 742. If that had been the average endeavour in my constituency, let alone in the whole borough, from 1968, it is not unfair to say that the grievous situation which now exists would not have been so serious—not if there had been a spark of humanity in the previous administrators.
The First and Second Interim Reports of the Action Group on London Housing contains this statement on page 2:
However, it soon became apparent to the Group that shortage of land was likely to be a major problem facing the London housing programme which had to be overcome as a matter of priority if the housing shortage was to be eliminated.
This statement appears on page three:
But authorities will need to consider whether they have really identified all the available land, whether they are doing all that is necessary to secure its early development and to realise its full potential, and whether they are pursuing a sufficiently positive programme of land assembly.
I have paid a fully justified compliment to the present local authority in Ealing. I must say equally that it is about time that it took to heart the words I have just read from the Action Group on London Housing and ensured that it enhances its good name by appointing a land officer to ensure that it knows where every plot of land in Ealing is, so that it

can do two things—fulfil the requirement which has been urged on the authority by the action group and therefore add additional lustre to its own activities in tackling the housing problem.
All over Britain, ever-increasing property prices result in fewer and fewer ordinary people being able to buy their own homes. Mortgage rates are now so high as to be a serious deterrent. The combination of these two factors makes an increasing number of people appeal to local authorities for housing for themselves and their families. As a result, housing registers are lengthening.
Then there is the problem of the increase of overcrowding. Young married couples naturally want a home of their own but, if they were to delay marriage before they had a home of their own, they might wait for a lifetime. They have to live in two rooms, or sometimes in just one room, with their parents. After a time, children come along, and then they are living in overcrowded condtions. Although they are overcrowded, it is not a feasible proposition for them to leave their parents' home. Family tensions develop, and there is growing unhappiness, but they have to put up with that state of affairs because we are unable, for some reason, in this modern State of ours to provide ordinary people with the homes to which they are entitled.
The incidence of homelessness is another dimension of the problem which we have experienced. People who do not meet the local authority's housing requirements move into Ealing and take furnished accommodation. Because of unemployment in Scotland or some other part of the country—I know of just such a case—a man comes down to London with his family because he can find work here. He takes furnished accommodation because he wants work. After a time, he is evicted. I have seen this happen with a family of five children.
In such circumstances, the local authority has no option but to place the people in one of its houses. Immediately that happens, however, I get a score of letters and requests to see me personally from people who have been on the housing register patiently waiting their turn. They ask, "Is that what we should do? Shall we get into overcrowed


premises, or take furnished accommodation for a few weeks, and then get put on the street, so that the council will provide us with a nice new house or flat?" That gives some idea of the seriousness of the problem.
As I say, the borough of Ealing has failed in only one respect, in my view, namely, in not thoroughly checking on what can be done with all the land in the borough. But in spite of what it does or can do, there will come a time when there is little land left.
I come now to another aspect of the matter which makes ordinary people very bitter and, what is more, makes them lose faith in democratic national and local government. There is a massive housing shortage, but there is virgin land apparently available for use. This land, however, is zoned for industrial use and the local authority cannot build homes on it. I ask the Minister to take particular note of this. In an area where the housing register stands at 8,000 and there are 140 families living in all sorts of makeshift accommodation, including what is called bed-and-breakfast accommodation, there is virgin land apparently available. We say that the borough has no land, but people ask, "What is that great piece of land doing vacant?" We have to tell them that because of our country's laws warehouses can be built on it but not homes for the people.
What sense of priorities is that? Goods and chattels can be housed in a warehouse building, people say, but not British families who need homes. This sort of thing is going on almost ad nauseam in my constituency, and it is not just virgin land that is in issue. Warehouses are going up faster than homes are. Despite its magnificent record—I do not know from where it gets its advice if it is not from its chief officers—the council now seems determined to make Ealing a depository for depositories. Whenever a factory comes down, instead of a school or housing taking its place, another warehouse is built. It is the only blot on the otherwise superb record of a magnificent council.
I said that there were 140 homeless families. The total in emergency accommodation is 400. The council is now spending £1 million not on those on the

housing register but on those made homeless as the result of evictions, and so on. Those on the housing register are forced to conclude that the way to jump the queue is to be evicted from furnished accommodation. One understands the bitterness of ordinary people in this situation.
I appeal to the Minister to take cognisance of one respect in which he can help. Ministry of Defence land is available in Ealing. I have appealed to the hon. Gentleman's right hon. Friend, but I shall not do that any more because I am not enamoured of bashing my head against a wall on the ground that it is nice when I stop. The hon. Gentleman has more understanding.
I live in the middle of my constituency and I know every inch of it. I assure the hon. Gentleman that there are large tracts of land used only to accommodate a small hut required for purposes connected with Northolt. The gas industry, British Railways and London Transport are among those with large patches of land that could be used to help to overcome the housing shortage.
The Minister may say that these problems occur in other parts of London, but in Ealing they are exacerbated by the fact that people come to the area because they know that the council is efficient and so they stand a better chance of being rehoused than they would have elsewhere. However, because of the desperate situation that we now face, despite the authority's best endeavours, the housing register is growing and the homeless register is growing. The council can no longer build quickly enough even to keep pace with current trends. So the situation is going from bad to worse, and I implore the Minister to give all the assistance he can.

3.8 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Reginald Eyre): I am grateful to the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Molloy) for raising the subject of housing for homelessness in Ealing. I appreciate that when we categorise London boroughs as inner and outer, there is the difficulty that a borough such as Ealing, which is very much on the dividing line, will be between the two categories. Clearly, from what has been said tonight, there are specific problems


in Ealing and I wish briefly to set out what the Government have done and propose to do to enable Ealing council to make a sustained attack on the housing problem.
The hon. Member is well aware of the problems of Ealing and of the housing problems of London as a whole, and he will understand when I say that Ealing does not appear to be as badly placed as many other London boroughs. Indeed, it is very much the case that it is the council, as the housing authority, which must decide on the way in which its problems can be best tackled on the priorities involved. Having said that, I wish to make it clear that there is a continuous dialogue between the Department and the council which is designed from the Department's side to give all the practical help possible to the council to deal with its problems.
Perhaps I may, at the outset, draw attention to the fact that the council has accepted tenders for 1,152 dwellings. That is at a time when obtaining an acceptable tender in London is not an easy task. It is to be congratulated, but I also think that it is a measure of the success of the Government's flexible approach, by the use of market force allowances in the yardstick cost control system which has enabled the council, which sees the maintenance of a large local authority house building programme as an essential contribution to solving its difficulties, to make such progress. It is particularly important that a number of the schemes are on sites which were not previously occupied by any dwellings, and so represent a total housing gain. It is also worth pointing out that the council has been able to let all the tenders which it has brought to the Department. Finally, I welcome the fact that during this period starts have been made on 53 dwellings in the private sector and 130 dwellings in a large housing association scheme. I must admit that I would have liked to see more of those.
In my capacity as the Chairman of the London Housing Action Group I have been very interested to see the results which have come to the group from its exercise on land availability. The situation as far as we know it in Ealing is that, looking at the period 1972–75, there is a potential of 170 acres, some of which is doubtful but a lot of which is firm, which will provide space for some

5,000 dwellings. The situation from 1976 to 1981 is, however, less promising, in that only about 37 acres have been identified and all this is in the doubtful category. It is in this period that the action group and its secretariat is pursuing the question further with the council to clarify the situation.
I am aware of the council's feeling that the further land can only come from the green belt. While the Government's commitment to preserving the principle of the green belt remains undiminished, a search for 2,000 acres in the metropolitan green belt has been put in the hands of the Standing Conference on London and South East Regional Planning and the local authorities, which can be expected to know and to take account of local conditions. I am sure that the representatives of the Ealing council will have made proposals in the light of their specialised knowledge of their area in connection with this exercise.
The hon. Member raised the case of Northolt Airport. I must explain that there are difficulties. Representations have been made about the release of this defence land, but the Nugent Committee which has been reviewing the question of the Services land holdings, has come down firmly on the need for the retention of this aerodrome.

Mr. Molloy: The land which is involved in Northolt Aerodrome is in my constituency but quite a distance from the aerodrome. The aerodrome is not in my constituency. It is land which the Ministry of Defence says is related to the aerodrome. I cannot see what rôle it plays.

Mr. Eyre: I have noted what the hon. Gentleman has said. However, I must point out that the Nugent Committee considered all these matters in great detail and came down firmly with the decision that there is a need for the retention of the aerodrome.
The White Paper in which the review is announced—"Widening the Choice: The Next Steps in Housing"—contains a number of other expressions of Government policy which are particularly relevant to the London borough of Ealing. For example, it is stressed that local authorities, with the help of housing associations, must be responsible for


ensuring that adequate and suitable accommodation for rent is built in areas where it is needed. We have announced that we would strongly support those councils who get on with the job and give them every encouragement, having created what we consider are the conditions in which they can operate. Under the Housing Finance Act the help is available to a council which is in need.
In that connection, it seems unfortunate that the Ealing council has for its own reasons not felt able to support housing associations which are buying up and improving dwellings in their area. The result has been that they have forfeited the nominations, which have gone to other boroughs who have supported the housing associations in the absence of help from Ealing. I do not think that the council can complain about that, but I take the point that if the council is now prepared to support housing associations it is reasonable for it to expect that the other boroughs will not use their powers to compete in Ealing. Competition of this kind can only result in a waste of resources. There is also the danger of competing housing associations adding to inflation by increasing the price of dwellings.
A second White Paper—"Better Homes: the Next Priorities"—contains our proposals for dealing with the problems of areas of housing stress. We intend to secure a better distribution of improvement grants than at present by directing help to those persons and those areas which are most in need. The new housing action areas will be identified by reference to a number of both housing and social factors flexible enough to cover a wide range of bad housing conditions. Within housing action areas special powers and incentives will apply. This is a package which we hope housing authorities will use but the question of whether or not there are areas in Ealing which would justify the use of the new powers which are proposed in the White Paper is, of course, for them to decide.
I should like now to say something about the question of homelessness in Ealing. I accept that the London borough of Ealing shares a considerable and growing problem of homelessness with many other London boroughs, particularly those in inner London. The

latest figures we have show that for the 12 months ending in March 1973, there were 540 applications from families claiming to be homeless in Ealing—4 per cent. of the total for the Greater London area.
The social services department in Ealing is currently providing for about 300 families in hostel or intermediate accommodation; in addition it has had recourse to bed-and-breakfast accommodation for 170 more. These figures are a considerable increase since the beginning of this year when there were about 230 families in the council's own social services accommodation and about 100 in bed-and-breakfast. This is the sombre situation with which the Ealing Borough Council is endeavouring to cope.
It is only right and proper that the question should be asked: what encouragement and help can the Government offer to Ealing and other hard pressed authorities—not all of them in London—who are wrestling with this evil of homelessness?
In the White Paper which I referred to earlier—"Widening the Choice"—we recognised homelessness as the most glaring of all special needs and said that the Government would shortly
concert with all local authorities a campaign to improve the condition of the homeless and to reduce the incidence of homelessness".
We also recognise the difficulties of the single homeless and expressed our intention to introduce new financial aid for those who provide accommodation for them.
The only long-term answer is to provide enough houses for everyone to have a decent home at a price they can afford. This is easier said than done, particularly in London. But, as I have explained, there is a determined and considerable house building programme in Ealing which is going forward with the Government's full support.
I should like to refer at this stage to the dilemma which was mentioned by the hon. Member, which any conscientious local authority finds itself in when faced with a homelessness problem of this size. On the one hand, there are the pressing claims of those unfortunate people—many of them, I must stress, not social misfits or Londoners evicted by wicked landlords, but people who have come to


London to fill the jobs which must be manned if the capital is to function properly. These pressing claims can be met in the present situation only at the expense of other deserving cases, who have lived in unsatisfactory accommodation, or who have been on the waiting list for a long time. Only the local authority, however, is in a position to assess priorities, and this is why successive Governments have decided to leave allocation of accommodation entirely in their hands.
We are now well on with establishing, with local authorities and voluntary bodies, more effective ways of tackling homelessness. Our object, in consulting widely, has been to establish a common approach: one which involves central and local government and the voluntary bodies in both the housing and social services fields. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Social Services announced on 26th October, we shall soon be issuing a joint circular, and we want it to be a practical document, which can start to make changes right away. Our main aims are to secure that more is done to prevent homelessness and to improve the conditions and the prospects of those who are homeless. I am glad to say that a housing aid centre has been established.
The fullest use needs to be made of existing accommodation in both the public and private sectors. Too many houses are empty, including "short life properties" which stand unused pending development. We need to be more compassionate, and more efficient in managing and allocating the existing stock of housing, recognising that homelessness is

almost always the extreme form of housing need.
I was heartened to hear that in Ealing there is close co-operation between the social services and the housing departments of the borough. Some families who become homeless are re-housed directly into council dwellings and I am informed that the council is contemplating the acquisition of a number of houses specifically to relieve the homelessness problem.

Mr. Molloy: The Minister could also help in cases where an area is scheduled as industrial. It is possible that some of the land there could be used for housing, but the local authority is stymied because of the nomenclature.

Mr. Eyre: That is mainly a matter for the local planning authority. No doubt the hon. Member will take that up with that authority.
The main doctrine in the circular derives from a joint official working party on homelessness in London and many of the London boroughs have already adopted its principal points. I understand, however, that in Ealing the prime responsibility for homelessness remains with the social services department.

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock on Tuesday evening and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

[Adjourned at twenty minutes past Three o'clock a.m.